​SANSKRIT, the name applied by Hindu scholars to the
ancient literary language of India. The word saṃskṛita is the
past participle of the verb kar(kṛ), “to make” (cognate with
Latin creo), with the preposition sam, “together” (cog. ἅμα,
ὁμός, Eng. “same”), and has probably to be taken here in the
sense of “completely formed” or “ accurately made, polished,
refined”—some noun meaning “speech” (esp. bhāshā) being
either expressed or understood with it. The term was, doubtless,
originally adopted by native grammarians to distinguish the
literary language from the uncultivated popular dialects—the
forerunners of the modern vernaculars of northern India—which
had developed side by side with it, and which were called (from
the same root kar, but with a different preposition) Prākṛita,
i.e. either “derived” or “natural, common” forms of speech.
This designation of the literary idiom, being intended to imply
a language regulated by conventional rules, also involves a
distinction between the grammatically fixed language of
Brāhmanical India and an earlier, less settled, phase of the same
language exhibited in the Vedic writings. For convenience the
Vedic language is, however, usually included in the term, and
scholars generally distinguish between the Vedic and the classical
Sanskrit.

I. Sanskrit Language

The Sanskrit language, with its old and modern descendants,
represents the easternmost branch of the great Indo-Germanic,
or Aryan, stock of speech. Philological research has clearly
established the fact that the Indo-Aryans must originally have
immigrated into India from the north-west. In the oldest
literary documents handed down by them their gradual advance
can indeed be traced from the slopes of eastern Kabulistan
down to the land of the five rivers (Punjab), and thence to the
plains of the Yamunā (Jumna) and Gangā (Ganges). Numerous
special coincidences, both of language and mythology, between
the Vedic Aryans and the peoples of Iran also show that these
two members of the Indo-Germanic family must have remained
in closing connexion for some considerable period after the others
had separated from them.

The origin of comparative philology dates from the time when
European scholars became accurately acquainted with the
ancient language of India. Before that time classical scholars
had been unable to determine the true relations between the
then known languages of our stock. This fact alone shows the
importance of Sanskrit for comparative research. Though its
value in this respect has perhaps at times been overrated, it
may still be considered the eldest daughter of the old
mother-tongue. Indeed, so far as direct documentary evidence goes,
it may be said to be the only surviving daughter; for none of the
other six principal members of the family have left any literary
monuments, and their original features have to be reproduced,
as best they can, from the materials supplied by their own
daughter languages: such is the case as regards the Iranic,
Hellenic, Italic, Celtic, Teutonic and Letto-Slavic languages.
To the Sanskrit the antiquity and extent of its literary documents,
the transparency of its grammatical structure, the
comparatively primitive state of its accent system, and the
thorough grammatical treatment it has early received at the
hand of native scholars must ever secure the foremost place in
the comparative study of Indo-Germanic speech.

The Sanskrit alphabet consists of the following sounds:—
Alphabet.

(a) Fourteen vowels, viz:

Ten simple vowels: a, ā, i, ī, u, ū, ṛ, ṝ, ḷ (ḹ); and

Four diphthongs: ē, āi, ō, āu.

(b) Thirty-three consonants, viz.:

Five series of mutes and nasals:

guttural: kkhgghṅ

palatal: cchjjhñ

lingual: ṭṭhḍḍhṇ

dental: tthddhn

labial: pphbbhm;

Four semivowels: yrlv (w)

Three sibilants: palatal ś (ç), lingual ṣ (sh), dental s; and

A soft aspirate: h.

(c) Three unoriginal sounds, viz.

visarga (ḥ), a hard aspirate, standing mostly for original s or r; and

two nasal sounds of less close contact than the mute-nasals, viz. anusvāra (ṃ) and anunāsika (ṁ).

As regards the vowels, a prominent feature of the language
Vowels.
is the prevalence of a-sounds, these being about twice as
frequent as all the others, including diphthongs taken
together (Whitney).

The absence of the short vowels ĕ and ŏ from the Sanskrit alphabet,
and the fact that Sanskrit shows the a-vowel where other
vowels appear in other languages—e.g.bharantam = φέροντα,
ferentem; janas = γένος, genus—were formerly considered as strong
evidence in favour of the more primitive state of the Sanskrit vowel
system as compared with that of the sister languages. Recent
research has, however, shown pretty conclusively from certain
indications in the Sanskrit language itself that the latter must at
one time have possessed the same, or very nearly the same, three
vowel-sounds, and that the differentiation of the original a-sound
must, therefore, have taken place before the separation of the
languages. Thus, Sans. carati, he walks, would seem to require an
original kěrĕti (Gr. πέλει = queleti, Lat. colit), as otherwise the
guttural k could not have changed to the palatal c (see below); and
similarly Sans. jānu, knee, seems to stand for gēnu (Lat. genu, Gr. γόνυ).
Not impossibly, however, this prevalence of pure a-sounds in Sanskrit
may from the very beginning have been a mere theoretical or graphic
feature of the language, the difference of pronunciation having not
yet been pronounced enough for the early grammarians to have
felt it necessary to clearly distinguish between the different shades
of a-sounds.

The vowels ē and ō, though apparently simple sounds, are classed
as diphthongs, being contracted from original ăi and ău respectively,
and liable to be treated as such in the phonetic modifications they
have to undergo before any vowel except ă.

As regards the consonants, two of the five series of
Consonants.
mutes, the palatal and lingual series, are of secondary
(the one of Indo-Iranian, the other of purely Indian)
growth.

The palatals are, as a rule, derived from original gutturals, the
modification being generally due to the influence of a neighbouring
palatal sound i or y, or ĕ (ä). The surd aspirate ch, in words of
Indo-Germanic origin, almost invariably goes back to original sk: e.g.chid- (chind-) = scindo, σχίζω: chāyā = σκιά (O.E. scin, shine);
Sans. acchati =βάσκει.

The palatal sibilant ś (pronounced sh) likewise originated from a
guttural mute k, but one of somewhat different phonetic value from
that represented by Sanskrit k or c. The latter, usually designated
by k² (or q), is frequently liable to labialization (or dentalization)
in Greek, probably owing to an original pronunciation kw (qu):
e.g.katara = πότερος, uter; while the former (k¹) shows invariably
κin Greek, and a sibilant in the Letto-Slavic and the Indo-Iranian
languages: e.g.śvan (śun) = κύων (κυν), canis, Ger. Hund; daśan =
δέκα, decem, Goth. taihun.

​The non-original nature of the palatals betrays itself even in
Sanskrit by their inability to occur at the end of a word—e.g.
acc. vācam = Lat. vocem, but nom. vāk = vox—and by otherwise
frequently reverting to the guttural state.

The linguals differ in pronunciation from the dentals in their
being uttered with the tip of the tongue turned up to the dome of
the palate, while in the utterance of the dentals it is pressed against
the upper teeth, not against the upper gums as is done in the English
dentals, which to Hindus sound more like their own linguals. The
latter, when occurring in words of Aryan origin, are, as a rule,
modifications of original dentals, usually accompanied by the loss
of an r or other adjoining consonant; but more commonly they
occur in words of foreign, probably non-Aryan, origin. Of regular
occurrence in the language, however, is the change of dental n into
lingual ṇ, and of dental s into lingual ṣ, when preceded in the same
word by certain other letters. The combination kṣ seems sometimes
to stand for ks (? kst) as in Sans. akṣa, Gr. ἄξων, axle; Sans. dakshiṇa,
Gr. δέξιος (but Lat. dexter); sometimes for kt, e.g. Sans. kshiti, Gr.
κτίσις (but Sans. kshiti = Gr. φθίσις); Sans. takshan, Gr. τέκτων.

The contact of final and initial letters of words in the same sentence
is often attended in Sanskrit with considerable euphonic modifications;
Phonetic changes.
and we have no means of knowing how far the
practice of the vernacular language may have corresponded
to these phonetic theories. There can be no doubt,
however, that a good deal in this respect has to be placed to the account
of grammatical reflection; and the very facilities which the primitive
structure of the language offered for grammatical analysis and an
insight into the principles of internal modification may have given
the first impulse to external modifications of a similar kind.

None of the cognate languages exhibits in so transparent a manner
as the Sanskrit the cardinal principle of Indo-Germanic
word-formation by the addition of inflectional endings—either case-endings
or personal terminations (themselves probably original roots)—to
stems obtained, mainly by means of suffixes, from monosyllabic
roots, with or without internal modifications.

There are in Sanskrit declension three numbers and seven cases,
not counting the vocative, viz. nominative, accusative, instrumental
Declension.
(or sociative), dative, ablative, genitive and
locative. As a matter of fact, all these seven cases
appear, however, only in the singular of a-stems and of
the pronominal declension. Other noun-stems have only one case-form
for the ablative and genitive singular. In the plural, the
ablative everywhere shares its form with the dative (except in the
personal pronoun, where it has the same ending as in the singular),
whilst the dual shows only three different case-forms—one for the
nominative and accusative, another for the instrumental, dative,
and ablative, and a third for the genitive and locative.

The declension of a-stems corresponding to the first and second
Latin declensions is of especial interest, not so much on account
of its being predominant from the earliest time, and becoming more
and more so with the development of the language, but because it
presents the greatest number of alternative forms, which supply a
kind of test for determining the age of literary productions, a test
which indeed has already been applied to some extent by Professor
Lanman, in his excellent Statistical Account of Noun Inflexion inthe Veda. These alternative case-forms are:—

1. āsas and ās for the nominative plural masc. and fem.: e.g.aśvāsas and aśvās = equi (equae). The forms in āsas—explained by
Bopp as the sign of the plural as applied twice, and by Schleicher
as the sign of the plural as added to the nominative singular—occur
to those in ās (i.e. the ordinary plural sign as added to the
a-stem) in the Ṛigveda in the proportion of 1 to 2, and in the peculiar
parts of the Atharvaveda in that of 1 to 25, whilst the ending ās
alone remains in the later language.

2. ā and āni for the nominative and accusative plural of neuters:
as yugā, yugāni = ζυγά, juga. The proportion of the former ending
to the latter in the Ṛik is 11 to 7, in the Atharvan 2 to 3, whilst
the classical Sanskrit knows only the second form.

3. ēbhis and āis for the instrumental plural masc. and neuter,
e.g.devēbhis, devāis. In the Ṛik the former forms are to the latter
in the proportion of 5 to 6, in the Atharvan of 1 to 5, while in the
later language only the contracted form is used. The same
contraction is found in other languages; but it is doubtful whether it
did not originate independently in them.

4. ā and āu for the nominative and accusative dual masc., e.g.ubhā, ubhāu = ἄμφω. In the Ṛik forms in ā outnumber those in āu
more than eight times; whilst in the Atharvan, on the contrary,
those in āu (the only ending used in the classical language) occur
five times as often as those in ā.

5. ā and ena (enā) for the instrumental singular masc. and neut.,
as dānā, dānena = dono. The ending ena is the one invariably used
in the later language. It is likewise the usual form in the Veda;
but in a number of cases it shows a final long vowel which, though
it may be entirely due to metrical requirements, is more probably a
relic of the normal instrumental ending ā, preserved for prosodic
reasons. For the simple ending ā, as compared with that in ena,
Professor Lanman makes out a proportion of about 1 to 9 in the
Ṛigveda (altogether 114 cases); while in the peculiar parts of the
Atharvan he finds only 11 cases.

6. ām and ānām for the genitive plural, e.g. (aśvām), aśvānām
= ἵππων, equum (equorum). The form with inserted nasal (doubtless
for anām, as in Zend aśpanām), which is exclusively used in the
later language, is also the prevailing one in the Ṛik. There are,
however, a few genitives of a-stems in original ām (for a-ām), which
also appear in Zend, Professor Lanman enumerating a dozen
instances, some of which are, however, doubtful, while others are
merely conjectural.

The Sanskrit verb system resembles that of the Greek in variety
and completeness. While the Greek excels in nicety and definiteness
Verb system.
of modal distinction, the Sanskrit surpasses it in
primitiveness and transparency of formation. In this
part of the grammatical system there is, however, an even
greater difference than in the noun inflection between the Vedic and
the classical Sanskrit. While the former shows, upon the whole,
the full complement of modal forms exhibited by the Greek, the
later language has practically discarded the subjunctive mood. The
Indo-Aryans never succeeded in working out a clear formative distinction
between the subjunctive and indicative moods; and, their
syntactic requirements becoming more and more limited, they at
last contented themselves, for modal expression, with a present
optative and imperative, in addition to the indicative tense-forms,
and a little-used aorist optative with a special “precative” or
“benedictine” meaning attached to it.

Another part of the verb in which the later language differs
widely from Vedic usage is the infinitive. The language of the old
hymns shows a considerable variety of case-forms of verbal abstract
nouns with the function of infinitives, a certain number of which
can still be traced back to the parent language, as, for instance,
such dative forms as jīv-áse = viv-ere; sáh-adhyāi = ἔχεσθαι;
dā′-mane = δόμεναι; dā′-vane = δοῦναι. Further, ji-shé, “to conquer,”
for ji-sé, apparently an aorist infinitive with the dative ending
(parallel to the radical forms, such as yudh-é, “to fight,” dṛs′-é, “to
see”), thus corresponding to the Greek aorist infinitive λῦσαι (but cf.
also Latin da-re, for dase, es-se, &c.). The classical Sanskrit, on
the other hand, practically uses only one infinitive form, viz. the
accusative of a verbal noun in tu, e.g.sthātum, etum, corresponding
to the Latin supinum datum, itum. But, as in Latin another
case, the ablative (datū), of the same abstract noun is utilized for
a similar purpose, so the Vedic language makes two other cases do
duty as infinitives, viz. the dative in tave (e.g.dā̇tave, and the
anomalous étavā̇i) and the gen.-abl. in tos (dā̇tos). A prominent feature
of the later Sanskrit syntax is the so-called gerund or indeclinable
participle in tvā, apparently the instrumental of a stem in tvá (probably
a derivative from that in tu), as well as the gerund in ya (or
tya after a final short radical vowel) made from compound verbs.
The old language knows not only such gerunds in tvā, using them,
however, very sparingly, but also corresponding dative forms in
tvāya (yuktvāya) and the curious contracted forms in tvī′ (kṛtvī,
“to do”). And, besides those in ya and tya, it frequently uses
forms with a final long vowel, as bhid-yā, i-tyā, thus showing the
former to be shortened instrumentals of abstract nouns in i and ti.

The Sanskrit verb, like the Greek, has two voices, active and
middle, called, after their primary functions, parasmāi-pada, “word
for another,” and ātmane-pada, “word for one's self.” While
in Greek the middle forms have to do duty also for the passive in
all tenses except the aorist and future, the Sanskrit, on the other
hand, has developed for the passive a special present-stem in ya,
the other tenses being supplied by the corresponding middle forms,
with the exception of the third person singular aorist, for which a
special form in i is usually assigned to the passive.

The present-stem system is by far the most important part of the
whole verb system, both on account of frequency of actual occurrence
and of its excellent state of preservation. It is with regard
to the different ways of present-stem formation that the entire stock
of assumed roots has been grouped by the native grammarians under
ten different classes. These classes again naturally fall under two
divisions or “conjugations,” with this characteristic difference that
the one (corresponding to Gr. conj. in ω) retains the same stem
(ending in a) throughout the present and imperfect, only lengthening
the final vowel before terminations beginning with v or m (not
final); while the other (corresponding to that in μι) shows two
different forms of the stem, a strong and a weak form, according as
the accent falls on the stem-syllable or on the personal ending:
e.g. 3 sing. bhára-ti, φέρει—2 pl. bhára-tha, φέρετε: but é-ti,
εἷσι—i-thá, ἴτε (for ἰτέ): 1 sing. stṛṇó-mi, στόρνυμι—1 pl. stṛṇu-más
(στόρνυμες).

As several of the personal endings show a decided similarity to
personal or demonstrative pronouns, it is highly probable that, as
might indeed be a priori expected, all or most of them are of
pronominal origin—though, owing to their exposed position and
consequent decay, their original form and identity cannot now be
determined with certainty. The active singular terminations, with
the exception of the second person of the imperative, are unaccented
and of comparatively light appearance; while those of the dual
and plural, as well as the middle terminations, have the accent,
being apparently too heavy to be supported by the stem-accent,
either because, as Schleicher supposed, they are composed of two ​different pronominal elements, or otherwise. The treatment of
the personal endings in the modifying, and presumably older,
conjugation may thus be said somewhat to resemble that of enclitics
in Greek.

In the imperfect the present-stem is increased by the augment,
consisting of a prefixed ă. Here, as in the other tenses in which
it appears, it has invariably the accent, as being the distinctive
element (originally probably an independent demonstrative adverb
“then”) for the expression of past time. This shifting of the
word-accent seems to have contributed to the further reduction of
the personal endings, and thus to have caused the formation of a
new, or secondary, set of terminations which came to be appropriated
for secondary tenses and moods generally. As in Greek poetry, the
augment is frequently omitted in Sanskrit.

The mood-sign of the subjunctive is ă, added to (the strong form
of) the tense-stem. If the stem ends already in ă, the latter becomes
lengthened. As regards the personal terminations, some persons
take the primary, others the secondary forms, while others again
may take either the one or the other. The first singular active,
however, takes ni instead of mi, to distinguish it from the indicative.
But besides these forms, showing the mood-sign ă, the subjunctive
(both present and aorist) may take another form, without any
distinctive modal sign, and with the secondary endings, being thus
identical with the augment less form of the preterit.

The optative invariably takes the secondary endings, with some
peculiar variations. In the active of the modifying conjugation its
mood-sign is yā, affixed to the weak form of the stem: e.g. root as—syām
= Lat. siem, sīm (where Gr., from analogy to ἐστί, &c., shows
irregularly the strong form of the stem, εἴην, for ἐσ-ιη-ν: as in
1st sing. of verbs in ω, it also has irregularly the primary ending,
λείποιμι = S. rece-y-am); while in the a-conjugation and throughout
the middle the mood-sign is ī, probably a contraction of yā: e.g.bháres = φέροις.

Besides the ordinary perfect, made from a reduplicated stem,
with distinction between strong (active singular) and weak forms,
and a partly peculiar set of endings, the later language makes
large use of a periphrastic perfect, consisting of the accusative of
a feminine abstract noun in ā (-ām) with the reduplicated perfect
forms of the auxiliary verbs kar, “to do,” or as (and occasionally
bhū), “to be.” Though more particularly resorted to for the
derivative forms of conjugation—viz. the causative (including the
so-called tenth conjugational class), the desiderative, intensive and
denominative—this perfect-form is also commonly used with roots
beginning with prosodically long vowels, as well as with a few
other isolated roots. In the Ṛigveda this formation is quite
unknown, and the Atharvan offers a single instance of it, from a
causative verb, with the auxiliary kar. In the Vedic prose, on the
other hand, it is rather frequent,[1] and it is quite common in the later
language.

In addition to the ordinary participles, active and middle, of
the reduplicated perfect—e.g.jajan-vā̇n, γεγον-ώς: bubudh-āná,
πεπυσ-μένο—there is a secondary participial formation, obtained
by affixing the possessive suffix vat (vant) to the passive past
participle: e.g.kṛta-vant, lit. “having (that which is) done.” A secondary
participle of this kind occurs once in the Atharvaveda, and it is
occasionally met with in the Brāhmaṇas. In the later language,
however, it not only is of rather frequent occurrence, but has assumed
quite a new function, viz. that of a finite perfect-form; thus kṛtavan,
kṛtavantas, without any auxiliary verb, mean, not “having done,”
but “he has done,” “they have done.”

The original Indo-Germanic future-stem formation in sya, with
primary endings—e.g.dāsyáti = δώσει (for δώσετι)—is the ordinary
tense-form both in Vedic and classical Sanskrit—a preterit of it,
with a conditional force attached to it (ádāsyat), being also common
to all periods of the language.

Side by side with this future, however, an analytic tense-form
makes its appearance in the Brahmaṇas, obtaining wider currency
in the later language. This periphrastic future is made by means
of the nominative singular of a nomen agentis in tar (dātar, nom.
dātā = Lat. dator), followed by the corresponding present forms of
as, “to be” (dātā-’smi, as it were, daturus sum), with the exception
of the third persons, which need no auxiliary, but take the respective
nominatives of the noun.

The aorist system is somewhat complicated, including as it does
augment-preterites of various formations, viz. a radical aorist,
sometimes with reduplicated stem—e.g.ásthām = ἔστην: śrudhí
=κλῦθι; ádudrot; an a-aorist (or thematic aorist) with or without
reduplication—e.g.áricas = ἔλιπες: ápaptam, cf. ἔπεφνον; and
several different forms of a sibilant-aorist. In the older Vedic
language the radical aorist is far more common than the a-aorist,
which becomes more frequently used later on. Of the different
kinds of sibilant-aorists, the most common is the one which makes
its stem by the addition of s to the root, either with or without a
connecting vowel i in different roots: e.g. root ji—1 sing. ájāisham,
1 pl. ájāishama; ákramisham, ákramishama. A limited number of
roots take a double aorist-sign with inserted connecting vowel (sish
for sis)—e.g.áyāsisham (cf. scrip-sis-ti); whilst others—very rarely
in the older but more numerously in the later language—make their
aorist-stem by the addition of sa—e.g.ádikshas = ἔδειξας.

As regards the syntactic functions of the three preterites—the
imperfect, perfect and aorist—the classical writers make virtually
no distinction between them, but use them quite indiscriminately.
In the older language, on the other hand, the imperfect is chiefly
used as a narrative tense, while the other two generally refer to a
past action which is now complete—the aorist, however, more
frequently to that which is only just done or completed. The
perfect, owing doubtless to its reduplicative form, has also not
infrequently the force of an iterative, or intensive, present.

The Sanskrit, like the Greek, shows at all times a considerable
power and facility of noun-composition. But, while in the older
Word-formation.
language, as well as in the earlier literary products of the
classical period, such combinations rarely exceed the
limits compatible with the general economy of inflectional
speech, during the later, artificial period of the language they
gradually become more and more excessive, both in size and
frequency of use, till at last they absorb almost the entire range of
syntactic construction.

One of the most striking features of Sanskrit word-formation is
that regular interchange of light and strong vowel-sounds, usually
designated by the native terms of guṇa (quality) and vṛiddhi
(increase). The phonetic process implied in these terms consists in
the raising, under certain conditions, of a radical or thematic light
vowel i, u, ṛ, l, by means of an inserted a-sound, to the diphthongal
(guṇa) sounds ăi (Sans. ē), ău (Sans. ō), and the combination ar
and al respectively, and, by a repetition of the same process, to the
(vṛiddhi) sounds āi, āu, ār, and āl respectively. Thus from root vid,
“to know,” we have véda, “knowledge,” and therefrom vāídika;
from yuj, yóga, yāúgika. While the interchange of the former
kind, due mainly to accentual causes, was undoubtedly a common
feature of Indo-Germanic speech, the latter, or vṛiddhi-change,
which chiefly occurs in secondary stems, is probably a later development.
Moreover, there can be no doubt that the vṛiddhi-vowels
are really due to what the term implies, viz. to a process of
“increment,” or vowel-raising. The same used to be universally
assumed by comparative philologists as regards the relation between
the guṇa-sounds ăi (ē) and ău (ō) and the respective simple i- and
u-sounds. According to a more recent theory, however, which has
been very generally accepted, we have rather to look upon the
heavier vowels as the original, and upon the lighter vowels as the
later sounds, produced through the absence of stress and pitch.
The grounds on which this theory is recommended are those of
logical consistency. In the analogous cases of interchange between
ṛ and ar, as well as ḷ and al, most scholars have indeed been wont to
regard the syllabic ṛ and ḷ as weakened from original ar and al,
while the native grammarians represent the latter as produced from
the former by increment. Similarly the verb as (ĕs), “to be,” loses
its vowel wherever the radical syllable is unaccented, e.g.ásti, Lat.
est—smás, s(u)mus; opt. syām, Lat. siēm (sīm). On the
strength of these analogous cases of vowel-modification we are,
therefore, to accept some such equation as this:—

ásmi: smás = δέρκομαι: ἔδρ(α)κον = λείπω: λιπειν

⁠= émi (εἷμι): imás (ἴμεν for ιμέν)

⁠= φεύγω: φυγειν

⁠= dóhmi (I milk): duhmás.

Acquiescence in this equation would seem to involve at least
one important admission, viz. that original root-syllables contained
no simple i- and u-vowels, except as the second element of the
diphthongs ai, ei, oi; au, eu, ou. We ought no longer to speak
of the roots vid, “to know,” dik, “to show, to bid,” dhugh, “to
milk,” yug, “to join,” but of veid, deik, dhaugh or dheugh, yeug,
&c. Nay, as the same law would apply with equal force to suffixal
vowels, the suffix nu would have to be called nau or neu; and, in
explaining, for instance, the irregularly formed δείκνυμι, δείκνυμεν,
we might say that, by the affixion of νευ to the root δεικ, the present-stem
δικνεύ was obtained (δικνεῦμι), which, as the stress was shifted
forward, became 1 plur. δικνυμέσ(ι),—the subsequent modifications
in the radical and formative syllables being due to the effects of
“analogy” (cf. G. Meyer, Griech. Gramm., § 487). Now, if there be
any truth in the “agglutination” theory, according to which the
radical and formative elements of Indo-Germanic speech were at one
time independent words, we would have to be prepared for a pretty
liberal allowance, to the parent language, of diphthongal
monosyllables such as deík neú, while simple combinations such as dik nu
could only spring up after separate syllable-words had become
united by the force of a common accent. But, whether the
agglutinationists be right or wrong, a theory involving the priority of the
diphthongal over the simple sounds can hardly be said to be one
of great prima facie probability; and one may well ask whether
the requirements of logical consistency might not be satisfied in
some other, less improbable, way.

Now, the analogous cases which have called forth this theory
turn upon the loss of a radical or suffixal a (ĕ), occasioned by the
shifting of the word-accent to some other syllable, e.g. acc. mātáram,
instr. mātrā̇; πέτομαι, ἐπτόμην: δέρκομαι, ἔδρ(α)κον: ásmi, smás.
Might we not then assume that at an early stage of noun and verb
inflection, through the giving way, under certain conditions, of the
stem-a (ĕ), the habit of stem-gradation, as an element of inflection, ​came to establish itself and ultimately to extend its sphere over
stems with i- and u-vowels, but that, on meeting here with more
resistance[2] than in the a (ĕ)-vowel, the stem-gradation then took
the shape of a raising of the simple vowel, in the “strong” cases
and verb-forms, by that same a-element which constituted the
distinctive element of those cases in the other variable stems? In
this way the above equation would still hold good, and the
corresponding vowel-grades, though of somewhat different genesis, would
yet be strictly analogous. At all events in the opinion of the
present writer, the last word has not yet been said on the important
point of Indo-Germanic vowel-gradation.

The accent of Sanskrit words is marked only in the more important
Vedic texts, different systems of notation being used in different
Accentuation.
works. Our knowledge of the later accentuation of
words is entirely derived from the statements of
grammarians. As in Greek, there are three accents, the
udātta (“raised,” i.e. acute), the anudātta (“not raised,” i.e. grave),
and the svarita (“sounded, modulated,” i.e. circumflex). The last
is a combination of the two others, its proper use being confined
almost entirely to a vowel preceded by a semivowel y or v,
representing an original acuted vowel. Hindu scholars, however, also
include in this term the accent of a grave syllable preceded by an
acuted syllable, and itself followed by a grave.

The Sanskrit and Greek accentuation's present numerous
coincidences. Although the Greek rule, confining the accent within the last
three syllables, has frequently obliterated the original likeness,
the old features may often be traced through the later forms. Thus,
though augmented verb-forms in Greek cannot always have the
accent on the augment as in Sanskrit, they have it invariably as
little removed from it as the accentual restrictions will allow; e.g.ábharam, ἔφερον: ábharāma, ἐφέρομεν: ábharāmahi, ἐφερόμεθα.

The most striking coincidence in noun declension is the accentual
distinction made by both languages between the “strong” and
“weak” cases of monosyllabic nouns—the only difference in this
respect being that in Sanskrit the accusative plural, as a rule, has
the accent on the case-ending, and consequently shows the weak
form of the stem; e.g. stem pad, ποδ: pā̇dam, πόδα:
padās, ποδός:
padí, ποδί: pā̇das, πόδες: padás, πόδας: padā̇m, ποδών: patsú, ποδί.
In Sanskrit a few other classes of stems (especially present participles
in ant, at), accented on the last syllable, are apt to yield their accent
to heavy vowel (not consonantal) terminations; compare the
analogous accentuation of Sanskrit and Greek stems in tār: pitáram,
πατέρα: pitré, πατρός: pitáras, πατέρες: pitṛ́shu, πατρ(ά)σι.

The vocative, when heading a sentence (or verse-division), has
invariably the accent on the first syllable; otherwise it is not
accented.

Finite verb-forms also, as a rule, lose their accent, except when
standing at the beginning of a sentence or verse-division (a vocative
not being taken into account), or in dependent (mostly relative)
clauses, or in conjunction with certain particles. Of two or more
co-ordinate verb-forms, however, only the first is unaccented.

In writing Sanskrit the natives, in different parts of India, generally
employ the particular character used for writing their own vernacular.
Written characters.
The character, however, most widely understood and
employed by Hindu scholars, and used invariably in
European editions of Sanskrit works (unless printed in
Roman letters) is the Nāgarī or “town-script,” also commonly
called Devanāgarī, or nāgarī of the gods.

The origin of the Indian alphabets is still enveloped in doubt.
The oldest hitherto known specimens of Indian writing are a number
of rock-inscriptions, containing religious edicts in Pāli (the Prākrit
used in the southern Buddhist scriptures), issued by the emperor
Aśoka (Piyadasi) of the Maurya dynasty, in 253-251 B.C., and
scattered over the area of northern India from the vicinity of Peshawar,
on the north-west frontier, and Girnar in Gujarat, to Jaugada
and Dhauli in Katak, on the eastern coast. The most western of
these inscriptions—those found near Kapurdagarhi or Shāhbāzgarhi,
and Mansora—are executed in a different alphabet from the
others. It reads from right to left, and is usually called the Arian
Pāli alphabet, it being also used on the coins of the Greek and
Indo-Scythian princes of Ariana; while the other, which reads from
left to right, is called the Indian Pāli alphabet. The former—also
called Kharoshṭhī or Gāndhāra alphabet (lipi)—which is manifestly
derived from a Semitic (probably Aramaean) source, has left no
traces on the subsequent development of Indian writing. The Indo-Pāli
(or Brāhmī) alphabet, on the other hand, from which the
modern Indian alphabets are derived, is of more uncertain origin.
The similarity, however, which several of its letters present to those
of the old Phoenician alphabet (itself probably derived from the
Egyptian hieroglyphics) suggests for this alphabet also the probability
of a Semitic origin, though, already at Aśoka's time, the
Indians had worked it up to a high degree of perfection and
wonderfully
adapted it to their peculiar scientific ends. The question as
to the probable time and channel of its introduction can scarcely
be expected ever to be placed beyond all doubt. The late Professor
Bühler has, however, made it very probable that this alphabet was
introduced into India by traders from Mesopotamia about 800 B.C.
At all events, considering the high state of perfection it exhibits
in the Maurya and Andhra inscriptions, as well as the wide area
over which these are scattered, it can hardly be doubted that the
art of writing must have been known to and practised by the Indians
for various purposes long before the time of Aśoka. The fact that
no reference to it is found in the contemporary literature has
probably to be accounted for by a strong reluctance on the part of
the Brāhmans to commit their sacred works to writing.

As regards the numeral signs used in India, the Kharoshṭhī
inscriptions of the early centuries of our era show a numerical
system in which the first three numbers are represented by as many
vertical strokes, whilst 4 is marked by a slanting cross, and 5-9 by
4(+) 1, &c., to 4(+)4(+)1; then special signs for 10, 20 and 100,
the intervening multiples of IO being marked in the vigesimal
fashion, thus 50 = 20(+)20(+)10. This system has been proved
to be of Semitic, probably Aramaic, origin. In the Brāhmī
inscriptions up to the end of the 6th century of our era, another
system is used in which 1-3 are denoted by as many horizontal
strokes, and thereafter by special syllabic signs for 4-9, the decades
10-90, and for 100 and 1000. This system was most likely derived
from hieratic sources of Egypt. The decimal system of cipher
notation, on the other hand, which is first found used on a Gujarat
inscription of A.D. 595, seems to be an invention of Indian astronomers
or mathematicians, based on the existing syllabic (or word) signs or
equivalents thereof.

The first two Sanskrit grammars published by Europeans were
those of the Austrian Jesuit Wesdin, called Paulinus a Sancto
Bartholomaeo (Rome, 1790-1804). These were followed by those of
H. C. Colebrooke (1805; based on Pāṇini's system), Carey (1806),
Wilkins (1808), Forster (1810), F. Bopp (1827), H. H. Wilson, Th.
Benfey, &c. These, as well as those of Max Müller, Monier Williams
and F. Kielhorn, now most widely used, deal almost exclusively
with classical Sanskrit; whilst that of W. D. Whitney treats the
whole language historically; as does also J. Wackernagel's not yet
completed Altindische Grammatik.

The first Sanskrit dictionary was that of H. H. Wilson (1819;
2nd ed., 1832), which was followed by the great Sanskrit-German
Wörterbuch, published at St Petersburg in 7 vols. by Professors
Böhtlingk and Roth. Largely based on this great thesaurus are the
Sanskrit-English dictionaries by Sir M. Williams (2nd ed., 1899),
Th. Benfey, A. A. Macdonell, &c. On the history of the Indian
alphabets, cf. G. Bühler, Indische Paläographie (1896); A. C.
Burnell, Elements of South Indian Palaeography (2nd ed., 1878),
R. Cust's résumé in Jour. Roy. As. Soc., N.S. vol. xvi.

II. Sanskrit Literature

The history of Sanskrit literature labours under the same
disadvantage as the political history of ancient India from the total
want of anything like a fixed chronology. In that vast range
of literary development there is scarcely a work of importance
the date of which scholars have fixed with absolute certainty.
The original composition of most Sanskrit works can indeed
be confidently assigned to certain general periods of literature,
but as to many of them, and these among the most important,
scholars have but too much reason to doubt whether they have
come down to us in their original shape, or whether they have
not undergone alterations and additions so serious as to make
it impossible to regard them as genuine witnesses of any one
phase of the development of the Indian mind. Nor can we expect
many important chronological data from new materials brought
to light in India. Though by such discoveries a few isolated
spots may be lighted up here and there, the real task of clearing
away the mist which at present obscures our view, if ever it can
be cleared away, will have to be performed by patient research
and a more minute critical examination of the multitudinous
writings which have been handed down from the remote past.
In the following sketch it is intended to take a rapid View of the
more important works and writers in the several departments
of literature.

In accordance with the two great phases of linguistic development
referred to, the history of Sanskrit literature readily
divides itself into two principal periods—the Vedic and the
classical. These periods partly overlap, and some of the later
Vedic work are included in that period on account of the
subjects with which they deal, and for their archaic style,
rather than for any just claim to a higher antiquity than may
have to be assigned to the oldest works of the classical Sanskrit.

The term veda—i.e. “knowledge,” (sacred) “lore”—embraces
a body of writings the origin of which is ascribed to divine
Saṃhitās.
revelation (śruti, literally “hearing”), and which
forms the foundation of the Brāhmanical system of
religious belief. This sacred canon is divided into three, or
(according to a later scheme) four co-ordinate collections, likewise
called Veda: (1) the Ṛig-veda, or lore of praise (or hymns);
(2) the Sāma-veda, or lore of tunes (or chants); (3) the Yajur-veda,
or lore of prayer (or sacrificial formulas); and (4) the
Atharva-veda, or lore of the Atharvans. Each of these four
Vedas consists primarily of a collection (saṃhitā) of sacred,
mostly poetical, texts of a devotional nature, called mantra.
This entire body of texts (and particularly the first three collections)
is also frequently referred to as the trayīvidyā, or threefold
wisdom, of hymn (ṛich[4]), tune or chant (sāman), and prayer
(yajus)—the fourth Veda, if at all included, being in that case
classed together with the Ṛik.

The Brāhmanical religion finds its practical expression chiefly
in sacrificial performances. The Vedic sacrifice requires for its
Classes of priests.
proper performance the attendance of four officiating
priests, each of whom is assisted by one or more
(usually three) subordinate priests, viz.: (1) the
Hotar (or hotṛi, i.e. either “sacrificer,” or “invoker”), whose
chief business is to invoke the gods, either in short prayers
pronounced over the several oblations, or in liturgical recitations
(śastra), made up of various hymns and detached verses; (2) the
Udgātar (udgātṛi), or chorister, who has to perform chants
(stotra) in connexion with the hotar's recitations; (3) the
Adhvaryu, or offering priest par excellence, who performs all the
material duties of the sacrifice, such as the kindling of the fires,
the preparation of the sacrificial ground and the offerings, the
making of oblations, &c.; (4) the Brahman, or chief “priest,”
who has to superintend the performance and to rectify any
mistakes that may be committed. Now, the first three of these
priests stand in special relation to three of the Vedic Saṃhitās
in this way: that the Saṃhitās of the Sāmaveda and Yajurveda
form special song and prayer books, arranged for the practical
use of the udgātar and adhvaryu respectively; whilst the
Ṛik-saṃhitā, though not arranged for any such practical purpose,
contains the entire body of sacred lyrics whence the hotar
draws the material for his recitations. The brahman, however,
had no special text-book assigned to him, but was expected
to be familiar with all the Saṃhitās as well as with the
practical details of the sacrificial performance (see Brahman and
Brāhmana). It sometimes happens that verses not found
in our version of the Ṛik-saṃhitā, but in the Atharvaveda-saṃhitā,
are used by the hotar; but such texts, if they did not
actually form part of some other version of the Ṛik—as Sāyaṇa
in the introduction to his commentary on the Ṛik-saṃhitā
assures us that they did—were probably inserted in the liturgy
subsequent to the recognition of the fourth Veda.

The several Saṃhitās have attached to them certain theological
prose works, called Brāhmaṇa, which, though subordinate in
Brāhmaṇas.
authority to the Mantras or Saṃhitās, are like them
held to be divinely revealed and to form part of the
canon. The chief works of this class are of an exegetic
nature,—their purport being to supply a dogmatic exposition
of the sacrificial ceremonial and to explain the mystic import
of the different rites and utterances included therein (see
Brāhmaṇa).

More or less closely connected with the Brāhmaṇas (and in a
few exceptional cases with Saṃhitās) are two classes of treatises,
called Āraṇyaka and Upanishad. The Āraṇyakas, i.e. works
“relating to the forest,” being intended to be read by those
who have retired from the world and lead the life of anchorites,
do not greatly differ in character and style from the Brāhmaṇas,
but like them are chiefly ritualistic, treating of special
ceremonies not dealt with, or dealt with only imperfectly, in the
Āraṇyakas and Upanishads.
latter works, to which they thus stand in the relation
of supplements. The Upanishads, however, are of a
purely speculative nature, and must be looked upon as
the first attempts at a systematic treatment of
metaphysical questions. The number of Upanishads hitherto known
is very considerable (about 170); but, though they nearly all
profess to belong to the Atharvaveda, they have to be assigned
to very different periods of Sanskrit literature—some of them
being evidently quite modern productions. The oldest treatises
of this kind are doubtless those which form part of the Saṃhitās,
Brāhmaṇs and Āraṇyakas of the three older Vedas, though not
a few others which have no such special connexion have to be
classed with the later products of the Vedic age.[5]

As the sacred texts were not committed to writing till a much
later period, but were handed down orally in the Brāhmaṇical
Different recensions.
schools, it was inevitable that local differences of
reading should spring up, which in course of time
gave rise to a number of independent versions. Such
different text-recensions, called śākhā (i.e. branch),
were at one time very numerous, but only a limited number have
survived. As regards the Saṃhitās, the poetical form of the
hymns, as well as the concise style of the sacrificial formulas,
would render these texts less liable to change, and the discrepancies
of different versions would chiefly consist in various
readings of single words or in the different arrangement of the
textual matter. But the diffuse ritualistic discussions and
loosely connected legendary illustrations of the Brāhmaṇas
offered scope for very considerable modifications in the
traditional matter, either through the ordinary processes of oral
transmission or through the special influence of individual
teachers.

Besides the purely ceremonial matter, the Brāhmaṇas also
contained a considerable amount of matter bearing on the
Vedāngas.
correct interpretation of the Vedic texts; and, indeed,
the sacred obligation incumbent on the Brāhmans of
handing down correctly the letter and sense of those texts
necessarily involved a good deal of serious grammatical and
etymological study in the Brāhmaṇical schools. These literary
pursuits could not but result in the accumulation of much learned
material, which it would become more and more desirable to
throw into a systematic form, serving at the same time as a
guide for future research. These practical requirements were
met by a class of treatises, grouped under six different heads or
subjects, called Vedāngas, i.e. members, or limbs, of the (body
of the) Veda. None of the works, however, which have come
down to us under this designation can lay any just claim to
being considered the original treatises on their several subjects;
they evidently represent a more or less advanced stage of
scientific development. Though a few of them are composed
in metrical form—especially in the ordinary epic couplet, the
anushṭubh śloka, consisting of two lines of sixteen syllables (or of
two octosyllabic pādas) each—the majority belong to a class
of writings called sūtra, i.e. “string,” consisting of
strings of rules in the shape of tersely expressed
aphorisms, intended to be committed to memory. The Sūtras
form a connecting link between the Vedic and the classical
periods of literature. But, although these treatises, so far
as they deal with Vedic subjects, are included by the native
authorities among the Vedic writings, and in point of language
may, generally speaking, be considered as the latest products
of the Vedic age, they have no share in the sacred title of śruti
or revelation. They are of human, not of divine, origin. Yet,
as the production of men of the highest standing, profoundly
versed in Vedic lore, the Sūtras are regarded as works of great
authority, second only to that of the revealed Scriptures; and
their relation to the latter is expressed in the generic title of
Smṛiti, or Tradition, usually applied to them.

​The six branches of Vedic science, included under the term
Vedanga, are as follows:—

1. Śikshā, or Phonetics.—The privileged position of representing
this subject is assigned to a small treatise ascribed to the great
Phonetics.
grammarian Pāṇini, viz. the Pāṇinīyā śikshā, extant
in two different (Ṛik and Yajus) recensions. But
neither this treatise nor any other of the numerous śikshās which
have recently come to light can lay claim to any very high age.
Scholars, however, usually include under this head certain works,
called Prātiśākhya, i.e. “belonging to a certain śākhā or recension,”
which deal minutely with the phonetic peculiarities of the several
Saṃhitās, and are of great importance for the textual criticism of the
Vedic Saṃhitās.

2. Chhandas, or Metre.—Tradition makes the Chhandaḥ-sūtra of
Pingala the starting-point of prosody. The Vedic metres, however,
Metre.
occupy but a small part of this treatise, and they are
evidently dealt with in a more original manner in the
Nidāna-sūtra of the Sāmaveda, and in a chapter of the Ṛik-prātiśākhya.
For profane prosody, on the other hand, Pingala's treatise is rather
valuable, no less than 160 metres being described by him.

3. Vyākaraṇa, or Grammar.—Pāṇini's famous grammar is said
Grammar.
to be the Vedānga; but it marks the culminating point of
grammatical research rather than the beginning, and
besides treats chiefly of the post-Vedic language.

4. Nirukta, or Etymology.—Yāska's Nirukta is the traditional
representative of this subject, and this important work certainly
Etymology.
deals entirely with Vedic etymology and explanation. It
consists, in the first place, of strings of words in three
chapters: (1) synonymous words; (2) such as are purely or
chiefly Vedic; and (3) names of deities. These lists are followed
by Yāska's commentary, interspersed with numerous illustrations.
Yāska, again, quotes several predecessors in the same branch of
science; and it is probable that the original works on this subject
consisted merely of lists of words similar to those handed down by
him.

5. Jyotisha, or Astronomy.—Although astronomical calculations
are frequently referred to in older works in connexion with the
Astronomy.
performance of sacrifices, the metrical treatise which has
come down to us in two different recensions under the
title of Jyotisha, ascribed to one Lagadha, or Lagata, seems
indeed to be the oldest existing systematic treatise on astronomical
subjects. With the exception of some apparently spurious
verses of one of the recensions, it betrays no sign of the Greek
influence which shows itself in Hindu astronomical works from about
the 3rd century of our era; and its date may therefore be set down
as probably not later than the early centuries after Christ.

6. Kalpa, or Ceremonial.—Tradition does not single out any
special work as the Vedānga in this branch of Vedic science; but
Ceremonial.
the sacrificial practice gave rise to a large number of
systematic sūtra-manuals for the several classes of priests.
The most important of these works have come down to us,
and they occupy by far the most prominent place among the literary
productions of the sūtra-period. The Kalpa-sūtras, or rules of
ceremonial, are of two kinds: (1) the Srauta-sūtras, which are based
on the śruti, and teach the performance of the great sacrifices,
requiring three sacrificial fires; and (2) the Smārta-sūtras, or rules
based on the smṛiti or tradition. The latter class again includes
two kinds of treatises: (1) the Gṛihya-sūtras, or domestic rules,
treating of ordinary family rites, such as marriage, birth,
name-giving, &c., connected with simple offerings in the domestic fire;
and (2) the Sāmayāchārika- (or Dharma-) sūtras, which treat of
customs and temporal duties, and are supposed to have formed the
chief sources of the later law-books. Besides, the Śrauta-sūtras of
the Yajurveda have usually attached to them a set of so-called
Śulva-sūtras, i.e. “rules of the cord,” which treat of the measurement
by means of cords, and the construction, of different kinds of
altars required for sacrifices. These treatises are of special interest
as supplying important information regarding the earliest geometrical
operations in India. Along with the Sūtras may be classed a large
number of supplementary treatises, usually called Pariśishṭa
(παραλιπόμενα), on various subjects connected with the sacred
texts and Vedic religion generally.

After this brief characterization of the various branches of
Vedic literature, we proceed to take a rapid survey of the several
Vedic collections.

A. Ṛigveda.[6]—The Ṛigveda-saṃhitā has come down to us in the
recension of the Śākala school. Mention is made of several other
versions; and regarding one of them, that of the Bāshkalas, we
Ṛigveda saṃhitā.
have some further information, according to which it seems,
however, to have differed but little from the Śākala text.
The latter consists of 1028 hymns, including eleven
so-called Vālakhilyas, which were probably introduced into the
collection subsequently to its completion. The hymns are composed
in a great variety of metres, and consist, on an average, of rather
more than 10 verses each, or about 10,600 verses altogether. This
body of sacred lyrics has been subdivided by ancient authorities in a
twofold way, viz. either from a purely artificial point of view, into
eight ashṭakas of about equal length, or, on a more natural principle,
based on the origin of the hymns, and invariably adopted by European
scholars, into ten books, or maṇḍalas, of unequal length.
Tradition (not, however, always trustworthy in this respect) has
handed down the names of the reputed authors, or rather inspired
“seers” (ṛishi), of most hymns. These indications have enabled
scholars to form some idea as to the probable way in which the
Ṛik-saṃhitā originated, though much still remains to be cleared up
by future research.

Maṇḍalas ii.-vii. are evidently arranged on a uniform plan. Each
of them is ascribed to a different family of ṛishis, whence they are
usually called the six “family-books”: ii., the Gṛitsamadas; iii.,
the Viśvāmitras or Kuśikas; iv., the Vāmadevyas; v., the
Atris; vi., the Bharadvājas; and vii., the Vasishṭhas. Further,
each of these books begins with the hymns addressed to Agni, the
god of fire, which are followed by those to Indra, the Jupiter Pluvius,
whereupon follow those addressed to minor deities—the Viśve
Devāḥ (“all-gods”), the Maruts (storm-gods), &c. Again, the
hymns addressed to each deity are arranged in a descending order,
according to the number of verses of which they consist.

Maṇḍala i., the longest in the whole Saṃhitā, contains 191 hymns,
ascribed, with the exception of a few isolated ones, to sixteen poets
of different families, and consisting of one larger (50 hymns) and
nine shorter collections. Here again the hymns of each author are
arranged on precisely the same principle as the “family-books.”
Maṇḍalas viii. and ix., on the other hand, have a special character
of their own. To the Sāmaveda-saṃhitā, which, as we shall see,
consists almost entirely of verses chosen from the Ṛik for chanting
purposes, these two maṇḍalas have contributed a much larger
proportion of verses than any of the others. Now, the hymns of the
eighth book are ascribed to a number of different ṛishis, mostly
belonging to the Kāṇva family. The productions of each poet are
usually, though not always, grouped together, but no other principle
of arrangement has yet been discovered. The chief peculiarity of
this maṇḍala, however, consists in its metres. Many of the hymns
are composed in the form of stanzas, called pragātha (from gā, “to
sing”), consisting of two verses in the bṛihatī and satobṛihatī metres;
whence this book is usually known under the designation of Pragāthās.
The other metres met with in this book are likewise such as
were evidently considered peculiarly adapted for singing, viz. the
gāyatrī (from gā, “to sing”) and other chiefly octosyllabic metres.
It is not yet clear how to account for these peculiarities; but further
research may perhaps show either that the Kāṇvas were a family
of udgātars, or chanters, or that, before the establishment of a
common system of worship for the Brāhmanical community, they
were accustomed to carry on their liturgical service exclusively by
means of chants, instead of using the later form of mixed recitation
and chant. One of the ṛishis of this family is called Pragātha
Kāṇva; possibly this surname “pragātha” may be an old, or local,
synonym of udgātar, or perhaps of the chief chanter, the so-called
Prastotar, or precentor. Another poet of this family is Medhātithi
Kāṇva, who has likewise assigned to him twelve hymns in the first
and largest groups of the first book. The ninth maṇḍala, on the
other hand, consists entirely of hymns (114) addressed to Soma,
the deified juice of the so-called “moon-plant” (Sarcostemmaviminale, or Asclepias acida), and ascribed to poets of different
families. They are called pavamānī, “purificational,” because they
were to be recited by the hotar while the juice expressed from the
soma plants was clarifying. The first sixty of these hymns are
arranged strictly according to their length, ranging from ten down
to four verses; but as to the remaining hymns no such principle of
arrangement is observable, except perhaps in smaller groups of
hymns. One might, therefore, feel inclined to look upon that first
section as the body of soma hymns set apart, at the time of the first
redaction of the Saṃhitā, for the special purpose of being used as
pavamānyas,—the remaining hymns having been added at subsequent
redactions. It would not, however, by any means follow that all, ​or even any, of the latter hymns were actually later productions,
as they might previously have formed part of the family collections,
or might have been overlooked when the hymns were first collected.
Other maṇḍalas (viz. i. viii. and x.) still contain four entire hymns
addressed to Soma, consisting together of 58 verses, of which only
a single one (x. 25, 1) is found in the Sāmaveda-saṃhitā, as also
some 28 isolated verses to Soma, and four hymns addressed to Soma
in conjunction with some other deity, which are entirely unrepresented
in that collection.

Maṇḍala x. contains the same number of hymns (191) as
the first, which it nearly equals in actual length. The hymns are
ascribed to many ṛishis, of various families, some of whom appear
already in the preceding maṇḍalas. The traditional record is,
however, less to be depended upon as regards this book, many
names of gods and fictitious personages appearing in the list of its
ṛishis. In the latter half of the book the hymns are clearly arranged
according to the number of verses, in decreasing order—occasional
exceptions to this rule being easily adjusted by the removal of a
few apparently added verses. A similar arrangement seems also
to suggest itself in other portions of the book. This maṇḍala stands
somewhat apart from the preceding books, both its language and
the general character of many of its hymns betraying a more recent
origin. In this respect it comes nearer to the level of the Atharvaveda-saṃhitā,
with which it is otherwise closely connected. Of some
1350 Ṛik-verses found in the Atharvan, about 550, or rather more
than 40%, occur in the tenth maṇḍala. In the latter we meet
with the same tendencies as in the Atharvan to metaphysical speculation
and abstract conceptions of the deity on the one hand, and to
superstitious practices on the other. But, although in its general
appearance the tenth maṇḍala is decidedly more modern than the
other books, it contains not a few hymns which are little, if at all,
inferior, both in respect of age and poetic quality, to the generality
of Vedic hymns, being perhaps such as had escaped the attentions
of the former collectors.

It has become the custom, after Roth's example, to call the
Ṛik-saṃhitā (as well as the Atharvan) an historical collection, as compared
with the Saṃhitās put together for purely ritualistic purposes.
And indeed, though the several family collections which
make up the earlier maṇḍalas may originally have served ritual
ends, as the hymnals of certain clans or tribal confederacies, and
although the Saṃhitā itself, in its oldest form, may have been
intended as a common prayer-book, so to speak, for the whole of
the Brāhmaṇical community, it is certain that in the stage in which
it has been finally handed down it includes a certain portion of
hymn material (and even some secular poetry) which could never
have been used for purposes of religious service. It may, therefore,
be assumed that the Ṛik-saṃhitā contains all of the nature of
popular lyrics that was accessible to the collectors, or seemed to them
worthy of being preserved. The question as to the exact period
when the hymns were collected cannot be answered with any approach
to accuracy. For many reasons, however, which cannot
be detailed here, scholars have come to fix on the year 1000 B.C. as
an approximate date for the collection of the Vedic hymns. From
that time every means that human ingenuity could suggest was
adopted to secure the sacred texts against the risks connected with
oral transmission. But, as there is abundant evidence to show that
even then not only had the text of the hymns suffered corruption,
but their language had become antiquated to a considerable extent,
and was only partly understood, the period during which the great
mass of the hymns were actually composed must have lain considerably
farther back, and may very likely have extended over
the earlier half of the second millenary, or from about 2000 to
1500 B.C.

As regards the people which raised for itself this imposing monument,
the hymns exhibit it as settled in the regions watered by the
mighty Sindhu (Indus), with its eastern and western tributaries,
the land of the five rivers thus forming the central home of the Vedic
people. But, while its advanced guard has already debouched upon
the plains of the upper Gangā and Yamunā, those who bring up
the rear are still found loitering far behind in the narrow glens of
the Kubhā (Cabul) and Gomati (Gomal). Scattered over this tract
of land, in hamlets and villages, the Vedic Āryas are leading chiefly
the life of herdsmen and husbandmen. The numerous clans and
tribes, ruled over by chiefs and kings, have still constantly to
vindicate their right to the land but lately wrung from an inferior
race of darker hue; just as in these latter days their Aryan kinsmen
in the Far West are ever on their guard against the fierce attacks of
the dispossessed red-skin. Not infrequently, too, the light-coloured
Āryas wage internecine war with one another—as when the Bharatas,
with allied tribes of the Panjab, goaded on by the royal sage
Viśvāmitra, invade the country of the Tṛitsu king Sudās, to be defeated
in the “ten kings' battle,” through the inspired power of the priestly
singer Vasishṭha. The priestly office has already become one of
high social importance by the side of the political rulers, and to
a large extent an hereditary profession; though it does not yet
present the baneful features of an exclusive caste. The Aryan
housewife shares with her husband the daily toil and joy, the privilege
of worshipping the national gods and even the triumphs of song craft,
some of the finest hymns being attributed to female seers.

The religious belief of the people consists in a system of natural
symbolism, a worship of the elementary forces of nature, regarded
as beings endowed with reason and power superior to those of man.
In giving utterance to this simple belief, the priestly spokesman
has, however, frequently worked into it his own speculative and
mystic notions. Indra, the stout-hearted ruler of the cloud-region,
receives by far the largest share of the devout attentions of the
Vedic singer. His ever-renewed battle with the malicious demons
of darkness and drought, for the recovery of the heavenly light and
the rain-spending cows of the sky, forms an inexhaustible theme of
spirited song. Next to him, in the affections of the people, stands
Agni (ignis), the god of fire, invoked as the genial inmate of the
Aryan household, and as the bearer of oblations, and mediator
between gods and men. Indra and Agni are thus, as it were, the
divine representatives of the king (or chief) and the priest of the
Aryan community; and if, in the arrangement of the Saṃhitā, the
Brāhmanical collectors gave precedence to Agni, it was but one of
many avowals of their own hierarchical pretensions. Hence also
the hymns to Indra are mostly followed, in the family collections,
by those addressed to the Viśve Devāḥ (the “all-gods”) or to the
Maruts, the warlike storm-gods and faithful companions of Indra,
as the divine impersonations of the Aryan freemen, the viś or clan.
But, while Indra and Agni are undoubtedly the favourite figures of
the Vedic pantheon, there is reason to believe that these gods had
but lately supplanted another group of deities who play a less
prominent part in the hymns, viz. Father Heaven (Dyaus Pitar,
Ζεύς πατήρ, Jupiter); Varuṇa (probably οὐρανός), the all-embracing
(esp. nocturnal) heavens; Mitra (Zend. Mithra), the genial light of
day; and Savitar, the quickener, and Sūrya (ἠέλιος), the vivifying
sun.

Of the Brāhmaṇas that were handed down in the schools of the
Bahvṛichas (i.e. “possessed of many verses”), as the followers of
Brāhmaṇas of Ṛigveda.
the Ṛigveda are called, two have come down to us, viz.
those of the Aitareyins and the Kaushītakins. The
Aitareya-brāhmaṇa[7] and the Kaushītaki-[8] (or
Śānkhāyana-) brāhmaṇa evidently have for their groundwork
the same stock of traditional exegetic matter. They differ, however,
considerably as regards both the arrangement of this matter and their
stylistic handling of it, with the exception of the numerous legends
common to both, in which the discrepancy is comparatively slight.
There is also a certain amount of material peculiar to each of them.
The Kaushītaka is, upon the whole, far more concise in its style and
more systematic in its arrangement—features which would lead
one to infer that it is probably the more modern work of the two.
It consists of thirty chapters (adhyāya); while the Aitareya has
forty, divided into eight books (or pentads, panchakā), of five chapters
each. The last ten adhyāyas of the latter work are, however,
clearly a later addition—though they must have already formed part
of it at the time of Pāṇini (c. 400 B.C.?), if, as seems probable, one
of his grammatical sūtras, regulating the formation of the names of
Brāhmaṇas, consisting of thirty and forty adhyāyas, refers to these
two works. In this last portion occurs the well-known legend (also
found in the Śānkhāyana-sūtra, but not in the Kaushītaki-brāhmaṇa)
of Śunaḥśepa, whom his father Ajīgarta sells and offers to slay, the
recital of which formed part of the inauguration of kings. While
the Aitareya deals almost exclusively with the Soma sacrifice, the
Kaushītaka, in its first six chapters, treats of the several kinds of
haviryajña, or offerings of rice, milk, ghee, &c., whereupon follows
the Soma sacrifice in this way, that chapters 7-10 contain the
practical ceremonial and 11-30 the recitations (śastra) of the hotar.
Sāyaṇa, in the introduction to his commentary on the work, ascribes
the Aitareya to the sage Mahidāsa Aitareya (i.e. son of Itarā), also
mentioned elsewhere as a philosopher; and it seems likely enough
that this person arranged the Brāhmaṇa and founded the school of
the Aitareyins. Regarding the authorship of the sister work we
have no information, except that the opinion of the sage Kaushītaki
is frequently referred to in it as authoritative, and generally in
opposition to the Paingya—the Brāhmaṇa, it would seem, of a
rival school, the Paingins. Probably, therefore, it is just what one
of the manuscripts calls it—the Brāhmaṇa of Sānkhāyana (composed)
in accordance with the views of Kaushītaki.

Each of these two Brāhmaṇas is supplemented by a “forest-book,”
or Āraṇyaka. The Aitareyāraṇyaka[9] is not a uniform
production. It consists of five books (āraṇyaka), three of which,
the first and the last two, are of a liturgical nature, treating of the
ceremony called mahāvrata, or great vow. The last of these books,
composed in sūtra form, is, however, doubtless of later origin, and is,
indeed, ascribed by native authorities either to Śaunaka or to Āśvalāyana.
The second and third books, on the other hand, are purely
speculative, and are also styled the Bahvṛicha-brāhmaṇa-upanishad.
Again, the last four chapters of the second book are usually singled ​out as the Aitareyopanishad,[10] ascribed, like its Brāhmaṇa (and the
first book), to Mahidāsa Aitareya; and the third book is also
referred to as the Saṃhitā-upanishad. As regards the Kaushītaki-āraṇyaka,[11]
this work consists of fifteen adhyāyas, the first two
(treating of the mahāvrata ceremony) and the seventh and eighth
of which correspond to the first, fifth, and third books of the
Aitareyāraṇyaka respectively, whilst the four adhyāyas usually
inserted between them constitute the highly interesting Kaushītaki-
(brāhmaṇa-) upanishad,[12] of which we possess two different
recensions. The remaining portions (9-15) of the Āraṇyaka treat of
the vital airs, the internal Agnihotra, &c., ending with the vaṃśa,
or succession of teachers. Of Kalpa-sūtras, or manuals of sacrificial
Sūtras of Ṛigveda.
ceremonial,[13] composed for the use of the hotar priest,
two different sets are in existence, the Āśvalāyana- and
the Śānkhāyana-sūtra. Each of these works follows one
of the two Brāhmaṇas of the Ṛik as its chief authority, viz. the
Aitareya and Kaushītaka respectively. Both consist of a Srauta-
and a Gṛihya-sūtra. Āśvalāyana seems to have lived about the
same time as Pāṇini (? c. 400 B.C.)—his own teacher, Śaunaka,
who completed the Ṛik-prātiśākhya, being probably intermediate
between the great grammarian and Yāska, the author of the Nirukta.
Śaunaka himself is said to have been the author of a Śrauta-sūtra
(which was, however, more of the nature of a Brāhmaṇa) and to
have destroyed it on seeing his pupil's work. A Gṛihya-sūtra is
still quoted under his name by later writers. The Āśvalāyana
Śrauta-sūtra[14] consists of twelve, the Gṛihya of four, adhyāyas.

Regarding Sānkhāyana still less is known; but he, too, was
doubtless a comparatively modern writer, who, like Āśvalāyana,
founded a new school of ritualists. Hence the Kaushītaki-brāhmaṇa,
adopted (and perhaps improved) by him, also goes under his name,
just as the Aitareya is sometimes called Āśvalāyana-brāhmaṇa.
The Sānkhāyana Śrauta-sūtra consists of eighteen adhyāyas. The
last two chapters of the work are, however, a later addition,[15] while
the two preceding chapters, on the contrary, present a comparatively
archaic, brāhmaṇa-like appearance. The Gṛihya-sūtra[16]
consists of six chapters, the last two of which are likewise later
appendages. The Sāmbavya Gṛihya-sūtra, of which a single MS.
is at present known, seems to be closely connected with the preceding
work. Professor Bühler also refers to the Ṛigveda the
Vāsishṭha-dharmaśātra,[17] composed of mixed sūtras and couplets.

A few works remain to be noticed, bearing chiefly on the textual
form and traditionary records of the Ṛik-saṃhitā. In our remarks
on the Vedāngas, the Prātiśākhyas have already been referred to
as the chief repositories of śikshā or Vedic phonetics. Among these
works the Ṛik-prātiśākhya[18] occupies the first place. The original
composition of this important work is ascribed to the same Śākalya
from whom the vulgate recension of the (Śākala) Saṃhitā takes
its name. He is also said to be the author of the existing
Padapāṭha (i.e. the text-form in which each word is given unconnected
with those that precede and follow it), which report may well
be credited, since the pada-text was doubtless prepared with a
view to an examination, such as is presented in the Prātiśākhya,
of the phonetic modifications undergone by words in their syntactic
combination. In the Prātiśākhya itself, Śākalya's father (or
Śākalya the elder) is also several times referred to as an authority
on phonetics, though the younger Śākalya is evidently regarded
as having improved on his father's theories. Thus both father
and son probably had a share in the formulation of the rules of
pronunciation and modification of Vedic sounds. The completion
or final arrangement of the Ṛik-prātiśākhya, in its present form, is
ascribed to Śaunaka, the reputed teacher of Āśvalāyana. Śaunaka,
however, is merely a family name (“descendant of Śunaka”),
which is given even to the ṛishi Gṛitsamada, to whom nearly the
whole of the second maṇḍala of the Ṛik is attributed. How long
after Śākalya this particular Śaunaka lived we do not know; but
some generations at all events would seem to lie between them,
considering that in the meantime the Śākalas, owing doubtless to
minor differences on phonetic points in the Saṃhitā text, had
split into several branches, to one of which, the Śaiśira (or Śaiśiriya)
school, Śaunaka belonged. While Śākalya is referred to both by
Yāska and Pāṇini, neither of these writers mentions Śaunaka. It
seems, nevertheless, likely, for several reasons, that Pāṇini was
acquainted with Śaunaka's work, though the point has by no
means been definitely settled. The Ṛik-prātiśākhya is composed
in mixed ślokas, or couplets of various metres, a form of composition
for which Śaunaka seems to have had a special predilection.
Besides the Prātiśākhya, and the Gṛihya-sūtra mentioned above,
eight other works are ascribed to Śaunaka, viz. the Bṛihaddevatā,[19]
an account, in epic ślokas, of the deities of the hymns, which supplies
much valuable mythological information; the Ṛig-vidhāna,[20] a treatise,
likewise in epic metre, on the magic effects of Vedic hymns and
verses; the Pāda-vidhāna, a similar treatise, apparently no longer in
existence; and five different indexes or catalogues (anukramaṇī) of
the ṛishis, metres, deities, sections (anuvāka) and hymns of the
Ṛigveda. It is, however, doubtful whether the existing version of the
Bṛihaddevatā is the original one; and the Ṛigvidhāna would seem
to be much more modern than Śaunaka's time. As regards the
Anukramaṇīs, they seem all to have been composed in mixed ślokas;
but, with the exception of the Anuvākānukramaṇī, they are only
known from quotations, having been superseded by the
Sarvānukramaṇī,[21] or complete index, of Kātyāyana. Both these indexes
have been commented upon by Shaḍguruśishya, towards the end of
the 12th century of our era.

B. Sāma-veda.—The term sāman, of uncertain derivation, denotes
a solemn tune or melody to be sung or chanted to a rich or verse.
Sāmaveda-saṃhitā.
The set chants (stotra) of the Soma sacrifice are as a rule
performed in triplets, either actually consisting of three
different verses, or of two verses which, by the repetition
of certain parts, are made, as it were, to form three.
The three verses are usually chanted to the same tune; but in certain
cases two verses sung to the same tune had a different sāman enclosed
between them. One and the same sāman or tune may thus be sung
to many different verses; but, as in teaching and practising the
tunes the same verse was invariably used for a certain tune, the term
“sāman,” as well as the special technical names of sāmans, are not
infrequently applied to the verses themselves with which they were
ordinarily connected, just as one would quote the beginning of the
text of an English hymn, when the tune usually sung to that hymn is
meant. For a specimen of the way in which sāmans are sung, see
Burnell, Ārsheyabrāhmaṇa, p. xlv. seq.

The Indian chant somewhat resembles the Gregorian or Plain
Chant.[22] Each sāman is divided into five parts or phrases (prastāva,
or prelude, &c.), the first four of which are distributed between the
several chanters, while the finale (nidhana) is sung in unison by all
of them.

In accordance with the distinction between ṛich or text and
sāman or tune, the sāman-hymnal consists of two parts, viz. the
Sāmaveda-saṃhitā, or collection of texts (ṛich) used for making up
sāman-hymns, and the Gāna, or tune-books, song-books. The
textual matter of the Saṃhitā consists of somewhat under 1600
different verses, selected from the Ṛik-saṃhitā, with the exception
of some seventy-five verses, some of which have been taken from
Khila hymns, whilst others which also occur in the Atharvan or
Yajurveda, as well as such not otherwise found, may perhaps have
formed part of some other recension of the Ṛik. The Sāmaveda-saṃhitā[23]
is divided into two chief parts, the pūrva- (first) and the
uttara- (second) ārchika. The second part contains the texts of
the sāman-hymns, arranged in the order in which they are actually
required for the stotras or chants of the various Soma sacrifices.
The first part, on the other hand, contains the body of tune-verses,
or verses used for practising the several sāmans or tunes upon—the
tunes themselves being given in the Grāma-geya-gāna (i.e. songs
to be sung in the village), the tune-book specially belonging to the
Pūrvārchika. Hence the latter includes all the first verses of those
triplets of the second part which had special tunes peculiar to
them, besides the texts of detached sāmans occasionally used
outside the regular ceremonial, as well as such as were perhaps ​no longer required but had been so used at one time or other. The
verses of the Pūrvārchika are arranged on much the same plan
as the family-books of the Ṛik-saṃhitā, viz. in three sections
containing the verses addressed to Agni, Indra and Soma (pavamāna)
respectively—each section (consisting of one, three, and one adhyāyas
respectively) being again arranged according to the metres. Hence
this part is also called Chhandas- (metre) ārchika. Over and above
this natural arrangement of the two ārchikas, there is a purely formal
division of the texts into six and nine prapāṭhakas respectively, each
of which, in the first part, consists of ten decades (daśat) of verses.
We have two recensions of the Saṃhitā, belonging to the Rāṇāyanīya
and Kauthuma schools, the latter of which is but imperfectly known,
but seems to have differed but slightly from the other. Besides the
six prapāṭhakas (or five adhyāyas) of the Pūrvārchika, some schools
have an additional “forest” chapter, called the Āraṇyaka-saṃhitā,
the tunes of which—along with others apparently intended for being
chanted by anchorites—are partly contained in the Araṇya-gāna.
Besides the two tune-books belonging to the Pūrvārchika, there are
two others, the Ūha-gāna (“modification-songs”) and Uhya-gāna,
which follow the order of the Uttarārchika, giving the several sāman-hymns
chanted at the Soma sacrifice, with the modifications the
tunes undergo when applied to texts other than those for which
they were originally composed. The Sāman hymnal, as it has come
down to us, has evidently passed through a long course of development.
The practice of chanting probably goes back to very early
times; but the question whether any of the tunes, as given in the
Gānas, and which of them, can lay claim to an exceptionally high
antiquity will perhaps never receive a satisfactory answer.

The title of Brāhmaṇa is bestowed by the Chhandogas, or followers
of the Sāmaveda, on a considerable number of treatises. In accordance
Sāmaveda-brāhmaṇas.
with the statements of some later writers, their
number was usually fixed at eight; but within the last
few years one new Brāhmaṇa has been recovered, while
at least two others which are found quoted may yet be
brought to light in India. The majority of the
Sāmaveda-brāhmaṇas present, however, none of the characteristic features of
other works of that class; but they are rather of the nature of sūtras
and kindred treatises, with which they probably belong to the same
period of literature. Moreover, the contents of these works—as
might indeed be expected from the nature of the duties of the priests
for whom they were intended—are of an extremely arid and technical
character, though they all are doubtless of some importance, either
for the textual criticism of the Saṃhitā or on account of the legendary
and other information they supply. These works are as follows:
(1) the Tāṇḍya-mahā- (or Prauḍha-) brāhmaṇa,[24] or “great”
Brāhmaṇa—usually called Panchaviṃśa-brāhmaṇa from its “consisting
of twenty-five” adhyāyas—which treats of the duties of the udgātars
generally, and especially of the various kinds of chants; (2) the
Shaḍviṃśa,[25] or “twenty-sixth,” being a supplement to the preceding
work—its last chapter, which also bears the title of Adbhuta-brāhmaṇa,[26]
or “book of marvels,” is rather interesting, as it treats of all
manner of portents and evil influences, which it teaches how to avert
by certain rites and charms; (3) the Sāmavidhāna,[27] analogous to the
Ṛigvidhāna, descanting on the magic effects of the various sāmans;
(4) the Ārsheya-brāhmaṇa, a mere catalogue of the technical names of
the sāmans in the order of the Pūrvārchika, known in two different
recensions; (5) the Devatādhyāya, which treats of the deities of the
sāmans; (6) the Chhāndogya-brāhmaṇa, the last eight adhyāyas
(3-10) of which constitute the important Chhāndogyopanishad;[28]
(7) the Saṃhitopanishad-brāhmaṇa, treating of various subjects
connected with chants; (8) the Vaṃśa-brāhmaṇa, a mere list of the Sāmaveda
teachers. To these works has to be added the Jaiminīya- or
Talavakāra-brāhmaṇa, which, though as yet only known by extracts,[29]
seems to stand much on a level with the Brāhmaṇas of the Ṛik and
Yajurveda. A portion of it is the well-known Kena- (or Talavakāra-)
upanishad,[30]
on the nature of Brahma, as the supreme of deities.

If the Sāmaveda has thus its ample share of Brāhmaṇa-literature,
though in part of a somewhat questionable character, it is not less
Sāmaveda-sūtras.
richly supplied with sūtra-treatises, some of which probably
belong to the oldest works of that class. There are
three Śrauta-sūtras, which attach themselves more or less
closely to the Panchaviṃśa-brāhmaṇa: Maśaka's Ārsheya-kalpa,
which gives the beginnings of the sāmans in their sacrificial
order, thus supplementing the Ārsheya-brāhmaṇa, which enumerates
their technical names; and the Śrauta-sūtras of Lāṭyāyana[31] and
Drāhyāyaṇa, of the Kauthuma and Rāṇāyanīya schools respectively,
which differ but little from each other, and form complete manuals
of the duties of the udgātars. Another sūtra, of an exegetic character,
the Anupada-sūtra, likewise follows the Panchaviṃśa, the difficult
passages of which it explains. Besides these, there are a considerable
number of sūtras and kindred technical treatises bearing on the
prosody and phonetics of the sāma-texts. The more important of
them are—the Ṛiktantra,[32] apparently intended to serve as a
Prātiśākhya of the Sāmaveda; the Nidāna-sūtra,[33] a treatise on prosody;
the Pushpa- or Phulla-sūtra, ascribed either to Gobhila or to
Vararuchi, and treating of the phonetic modifications of the rich in the
sāmans; and the Sāmatantra, a treatise on chants of a very technical
nature. Further, two Gṛihya-sūtras, belonging to the Sāmaveda,
are hitherto known, viz. the Drāhyāyaṇa-gṛihya, ascribed to Khrādira,
and that of Gobhila[34] (who is also said to have composed a
śrauta-sūtra), with a supplement, entitled Karmapradīpa, by Kātyāyana.
To the Sāmaveda seems further to belong the Gautama-dharmaśāstra,[35]
composed in sūtras, and apparently the oldest existing compendium
of Hindu law.

C. Yajur-veda.—This, the sacrificial Veda of the Adhvaryu priests,
divides itself into an older and a younger branch, or, as they are
Saṃhitās of Black Yajurveda.
usually called, the Black (kṛishṇa) and the White (śukla)
Yajurveda. Tradition ascribes the foundation of the
Yajurveda to the sage Vaiśampāyana. Of his disciples
three are specially named, viz. Kaṭha, Kalāpin and Yāska
Paingi, the last of whom again is stated to have communicated the
sacrificial science to Tittiri. How far this genealogy of teachers
may be authentic cannot now be determined; but certain it is that
in accordance therewith we have three old collections of
Yajus-texts, viz. the Kāṭhaka,[36] the Kālāpaka or Maitrāyaṇī Saṃhitā,[37]
and the Taittirīya-saṃhitā.[38] The Kāṭhaka and Kālāpaka are
frequently mentioned together; and the author of the “great
commentary” on Pāṇini once remarks that these works were taught
in every village. The Kaṭhas and Kālāpas are often referred to
under the collective name of Charakas, which apparently means
“wayfarers” or itinerant scholars; but according to a later
writer (Hemachandra) Charaka is no other than Vaiśampāyana
himself, after whom his followers would have been thus called.
From the Kaṭhas proper two or three schools seem early to have
branched off, the Prāchya- (eastern) Kaṭhas and the Kapishṭhala-Kaṭhas,
the text-recension of the latter of whom has recently
been discovered in the Kapishṭhala-kaṭha-saṃhitā, and probably
also the Chārāyaṇīya-Kaṭhas. The Kālāpas also soon became
subdivided into numerous different schools. Thus from one of Kalāpin's
immediate disciples, Haridru, the Hāridravīyas took their origin,
whose text-recension, the Hāridravika, is quoted together with the
Kāṭhaka as early as in Yāska's Nirukta; but we do not know
whether it differed much from the original Kālāpa texts. As regards
the Taittirīya-saṃhitā, that collection, too, in course of time gave
rise to a number of different schools, the text handed down being
that of the Āpastambas; while the contents of another recension,
that of the Ātreyas, are known from their Anukramaṇi, which has
been preserved.

The four collections of old Yajus texts, so far known to us, while
differing more or less considerably in arrangement and verbal
points, have the main mass of their textual matter in common.
This common matter consists of both sacrificial prayers (yajus) in
verse and prose, and exegetic or illustrative prose portions
(brāhmaṇa). A prominent feature of the old Yajus texts, as compared
with the other Vedas, is the constant intermixture of textual and
exegetic portions. The Charakas and Taittirīyas thus do not
recognize the distinction between Saṃhitā and Brāhmaṇa in the
sense of two separate collections of texts, but they have only a
Saṃhitā, or collection, which includes likewise the exegetic or
Brāhmaṇa portions. The Taittirīyas seem at last to have been
impressed with their want of a separate Brāhmaṇa and to have set
about supplying the deficiency in rather an awkward fashion:
instead of separating from each other the textual and exegetic portions
of their Saṃhitā, they merely added to the latter a supplement
(in three books), which shows the same mixed condition, and applied
to it the title of Taittirīya-brāhmaṇa.[39] But, though the main body of ​this work is manifestly of a supplementary nature, a portion of it
may perhaps be old, and may once have formed part of the Saṃhitā,
considering that the latter consists of seven ashṭakas, instead of
eight, as this term requires, and that certain essential parts of the
ceremonial handled in the Brāhmaṇa are entirely wanting in the
Saṃhitā. Attached to this work is the Taittirīya-āraṇyaka,[40] in ten
books, the first six of which are of a ritualistic nature, while of the
remaining books the first three (7-9) form the Taittirīyopanishad[41]
(consisting of three parts, viz. the Sikshāvallī or Saṃhitopanishad, and
the Ānandavallī and Bhṛiguvallī, also called together the
Vāruṇiupanishad), and the last book forms the Nārāyaṇīya- (or Yājñikī-)
upanishad.

The Maitrāyaṇī Saṃhitā, the identity of which with the original
Kālāpaka has been proved pretty conclusively by Dr L. v. Schröder,
who attributes the change of name of the Kālāpa-Maitrāyaṇīyas
to Buddhist influences, consists of four books, attached to which is
the Maitri- (or Maitrāyaṇī) upanishad.[42] The Kāṭhaka, on the other
hand, consists of five parts, the last two of which, however, are
perhaps later additions, containing merely the prayers of the hotar
priest, and those used at the horse-sacrifice. There is, moreover, the
beautiful Kaṭha- or Kāṭhaka-upanishad,[43] which is also, and more
usually, ascribed to the Atharvaveda, and which seems to show a
decided leaning towards Sānkhya-Yoga notions.

The defective arrangement of the Yajus texts was at last remedied
by a different school of Adhvaryus, the Vājasaneyins. The reputed
Saṃhitā of White Yajurveda.
originator of this school and its text-recension is
Yājñavalkya Vājasaneya (son of Vājasani). The result of the
rearrangement of the texts was a collection of sacrificial
mantras, the Vājasaneyi-saṃhitā, and a Brāhmaṇa, the
Śatapatha. On account of the greater lucidity of this
arrangement, the Vājasaneyins called their texts the White (or clear)
Yajurveda—the name of Black (or obscure) Yajus being for opposite
reasons applied to the Charaka texts. Both the Saṃhitā and
Brāhmaṇa of the Vājasaneyins have come down to us in two different
recensions, viz. those of the Mādhyandina and Kāṇva schools; and we
find besides a considerable number of quotations from a Vājasaneyaka,
from which we cannot doubt that there must have been at least one
other recension of the Śatapatha-brāhmaṇa. The difference between
the two extant recensions is, on the whole, but slight as regards the
subject-matter; but in point of diction it is quite sufficient to make a
comparison especially interesting from a philological point of view.
Which of the two versions may be the more original cannot as yet be
determined; but the phonetic and grammatical differences will
probably have to be accounted for by a geographical separation of
the two schools rather than by a difference of age. In several
points of difference the Kāṇva recension agrees with the practice of
the Ṛik-saṃhitā, and there probably was some connexion between
the Yajus school of Kāṇvas and the famous family of ṛishis of that
name to which the eighth maṇḍala of the Ṛik is attributed.

The Vājasaneyi-saṃhitā,[44] consists of forty adhyāyas, the first
eighteen of which contain the formulas of the ordinary sacrifices.
The last fifteen adhyāyas are doubtless a later addition—as may
also be the case as regards the preceding seven chapters. The last
adhyāya is commonly known under the title of Vājasaneyi-saṃhitā
(or Iśāvāsya-) upanishad.[45] Its object seems to be to point out the
fruitlessness of mere works, and to insist on the necessity of man's
acquiring a knowledge of the supreme spirit. The sacrificial texts
of the Adhvaryus consist, in about equal parts, of verses (rich) and
prose formulas (yajus). The majority of the former occur likewise
in the Ṛik-saṃhitā, from which they were doubtless extracted.
Not infrequently, however, they show considerable discrepancies
of reading, which may be explained partly from a difference of
recension and partly as the result of the adaptation of these verses
to their special sacrificial purpose. As regards the prose formulas,
though only a few of them are actually referred to in the Ṛik, it is
quite possible that many of them may be of high antiquity.

The Śatapatha-brāhmaṇa,[46] or Brāhmaṇa of a hundred paths, derives
its name from the fact of its consisting of 100 lectures (adhyāya),
Brāhmaṇa of White Yajurveda.
which are divided by the Mādhyandinas into fourteen, by
the Kāṇvas into seventeen books (kāṇḍa). The first nine
books of the former, corresponding to the first eleven of
the Kāṇvas, and consisting of sixty adhyāyas, form a
kind of running commentary on the first eighteen books
of the Vāj.-Saṃhitā; and it has been plausibly suggested by
Professor Weber that this portion of the Brāhmaṇa may be referred
to in the Mahābhāshya on Pāṇ. iv. 2, 60, where a Śatapatha and
a Shashṭi-patha (i.e. “consisting of 60 paths”) are mentioned
together as objects of study, and that consequently it may at one
time have formed an independent work. This view is also supported
by the circumstance that of the remaining five books (10-14) of the
Mādhyandinas the third is called the middle one (madhyama);
while the Kāṇvas apply the same epithet to the middlemost of the
five books (12-16) preceding their last one. This last book would
thus seem to be treated by them as a second supplement, and not
without reason, as it is of the Upanishad order, and bears the special
title of Bṛihad- (great) āraṇyaka;[47] the last six chapters of which are
the Bṛihadāraṇyaka-upanishad,[48] the most important of all
Upanishads. Except in books 6-10 (M.), which treat of the construction of
fire-altars, and recognize the sage Sāṇḍilya as their chief authority,
Yājñavalkya's opinion is frequently referred to in the Śatapatha as
authoritative. This is especially the case in the later books, part
of the Bṛihad-āraṇyaka being even called Yājñavalkiya-kāṇḍa. As
regards the age of the Śatapatha, the probability is that the main
body of the work is considerably older than the time of Pāṇini, but
that some of its latter parts were considered by Pāṇini's critic Kātyāyana
to be of about the same age as, or not much older than, Pāṇini.
Even those portions had probably been long in existence before
they obtained recognition as part of the canon of the White Yajus.

The contemptuous manner in which the doctrines of the
Charaka-adhvaryus are repeatedly animadverted upon in the Śatapatha
betrays not a little of the odium theologicum on the part of the
divines of the Vājasaneyins towards their brethren of the older
schools. Nor was their animosity confined to mere literary warfare,
but they seem to have striven by every means to gain ascendancy
over their rivals. The consolidation of the Brāhmanical hierarch
and the institution of a common system of ritual worship, which
called forth the liturgical Vedic collections, were doubtless consummated
in the so-called Madhya-deśa, or “midland,” lying between
the Sarasvatī and the confluence of the Yamunā and Gangā; and
more especially in its western part, the Kuru-kshetra, or land of the
Kurus, with the adjoining territory of the Panchālas, between the
Yamunā and Gangā. From thence the original schools of Vaidik
ritualism gradually extended their sphere over the adjacent parts.
The Charakas seem for a long time to have held sway in the western
and north-western regions; while the Taittirīyas in course of time
spread over the whole of the peninsula south of the Narmadā
(Nerbudda), where their ritual has remained pre-eminently the object of
study till comparatively recent times. The Vājasaneyins, on the
other hand, having first gained a footing in the lands on the lower
Ganges, chiefly, it would seem, through the patronage of King Janaka
of Videha, thence gradually worked their way westwards, and eventually
succeeded in superseding the older schools north of the Vindhya,
with the exception of some isolated places where even now families
of Brahmans are met with which profess to follow the old Saṃhitās.

In Kalpa-sūtras the Black Yajurveda is particularly rich; but,
owing to the circumstances just indicated, they are almost entirely
Sūtras of Yajurveda.
confined to the Taittirīya school. The only Śrauta-sūtra
of a Charaka school which has hitherto been recovered is
that of the Mānavas, a subdivision of the Maitrāyaṇīyas.
The Mānava-śrauta-sūtra[49] seems to consist of eleven
books, the first nine of which treat of the sacrificial ritual, while the
tenth contains the Śulva-sūtra; and the eleventh is made up of a
number of supplements (pari-śishṭa). The Mānava-gṛihya-sūtra[50] is
likewise in existence; but so far nothing is known, save one or two
quotations, of a Mānava-dharma-sūtra, the discovery of which might
be expected to solve some important questions regarding the development
of Indian law. Of sūtra-works belonging to the Kaṭhas,
a single treatise, the (Chārāyaṇīya-) Kāṭhaka-gṛihya-sūtra, is known;
while Dr Jolly considers the Vishṇu-smṛiti,[51] a compendium of law,
composed in mixed sūtras and ślokas, to be nothing but a Vaishṇava
recast of the Kaṭhaka-dharma-sūtra, which, in its original form,
seems no longer to exist. As regards the Taittirīyas, the Kalpa-sūtra
most widely accepted among them was that of Āpastamba,
to whose school, as we have seen, was also due our existing recension
of the Taittirīya-saṃhitā. The Āpastamba-kalpa-sūtra consists
of thirty praśna (questions); the first twenty-five of these
constitute the Śrauta-sūtra;[52] 26 and 27 the Gṛihya-sūtra;[53] 28 and 29
the Dharma-sūtra;[54] and the last the Śulva-sūtra. Professor
Bühler has tried to fix the date of this work somewhere between the
5th and 3rd centuries B.C.; but it can hardly yet be considered as
definitely settled. Considerably more ancient than this work are the ​Baudhāyana-kalpa-sūtra,[55] which consists of the same principal divisions,
and the Bhāradvāja-sūtra, of which, however, only a few
portions have as yet been discovered. The Hiraṇyakeśi-sūtra,[56] which is
more modern than that of Āpastamba, from which it differs but little,
is likewise fragmentary, as is also the Vaikhānasa-sūtra;[57] while
several other Kalpa-sūtras, especially that of Laugākshi, are found
quoted. The recognized compendium of the White Yajus ritual is
the Śrauta-sūtra of Kātyāyana,[58] in twenty-six adhyāyas. This
work is supplemented by a large number of secondary treatises,
likewise attributed to Kātyāyana, among which may be mentioned
the Charaṇa-vyūha,[59] a statistical account of the Vedic schools,
which unfortunately has come down to us in a very unsatisfactory
state of preservation. A manual of domestic rites, closely connected
with Kātyāyana's work, is the Kātīya-gṛihya-sūtra,[60] ascribed to
Pāraskara. To Kātyāyana we further owe the Vājasaneyi-prātiśākhya,[61]
and a catalogue (anukramaṇī) of the White Yajus texts.
As regards the former work, it is still doubtful whether (with Weber)
we have to consider it as older than Pāṇini, or whether (with
Goldstücker and M. Müller) we are to identify its author with Pāṇini's
critic. The only existing Prātiśākhya[62] of the Black Yajus belongs
to the Taittirīyas. Its author is unknown, and it confines itself
entiilely to the Taittirīya-saṃhitā, to the exclusion of the Brāhmaṇa
and Āraṇyaka.

D. Atharva-veda.—The Atharvan was the latest of Vedic
collections to be recognized as part of the sacred canon. That it is
Atharva-veda-saṃhitā.
also the youngest Veda is proved by its language, which
both from a lexical and a grammatical point of view,
marks an intermediate stage between the main body of
the Ṛik and the Brāhmaṇa period. In regard also to
the nature of its contents, and the spirit which pervades them, this
Vedic collection occupies a position apart from the others. Whilst
the older Vedas seem clearly to reflect the recognized religious notions
and practices of the upper, and so to speak, respectable classes of the
Āryan tribes, as jealously watched over by a priesthood deeply
interested in the undiminished maintenance of the traditional
observances, the fourth Veda, on the other hand, deals mainly with
all manner of superstitious practices such as have at all times found
a fertile soil in the lower strata of primitive and less advanced
peoples, and are even apt, below the surface, to maintain their
tenacious hold on the popular mind in comparatively civilized communities.
Though the constant intermingling with the aboriginal
tribes may well be believed to have exercised a deteriorating influence
on the Vedic people in this respect, it can scarcely be doubted
that superstitious practices of the kind revealed by the Atharvan
and the tenth book of the Ṛik must at all times have obtained
amongst the Āryan people, and that they only came to the surface
when the received the stamp of recognized forms of popular belief
by the admission of these collections of spells and incantations into
the sacred canon. If in this phase of superstitious belief the old
gods still find a place, their character has visibly changed so as to be
more in accordance with those mystic rites and magic performances
and the part they are called upon to play in them, as the promoters
of the votary's cabalistic practices and the averters of the malicious
designs of mortal enemies and the demoniac influences to which he
would ascribe his fears and failures as well as his bodily ailments.
The fourth Veda may thus be said to supplement in a remarkable
manner the picture of the domestic life of the Vedic Āryan as
presented in the Gṛihya-sūtras or house-rules; for whilst these deal
only with the orderly aspects of the daily duties and periodic observances
in the life of the respectable householder, the Atharvaveda
allows us a deep insight into “the obscurer relations and emotions
of human life”; and, it may with truth be said that “the literary
diligence of the Hindus has in this instance preserved a document of
priceless value for the institutional history of early India as well as
for the ethnological history of the human race” (M. Bloomfield).
It is worthy of note that the Atharvaveda is practically unknown
in the south of India.[63]

This body of spells and hymns is traditionally associated with
two old mythic priestly families, the Atharvans and Angiras, their
names, in the plural, serving either singly or combined
(Atharvāgirasas)
as the oldest appellation of the collection. The two families
or classes of priests are by tradition connected with the service of
the sacred fire; but whilst the Atharvans seem to have devoted
themselves to the auspicious as aspects of the fire-cult and the performance
of propitiatory rites, the Angiras, on the other hand, are
represented as having been mainly engaged in the uncanny practices
of sorcery and exorcism. Instead of the Atharvans, another mythic
family, the Bhṛigus, are similarly connected with the Angiras
(Bhṛigvangirasas) as the depositories of this mystic science. In
course of time the lore of the Atharvans came also to have applied
to it the title of Brahmaveda; a designation which was apparently
meant to be understood both in the sense of the Veda of the Brahman
priest or superintendent of the sacrifice, and in that of the lore of the
Brahma or sacred (magic) word, and the supreme deity it is supposed
to embody. The current text of the Atharva-saṃhitā[64]—apparently the recension of the Śaunaka school—consists of some
750 different pieces, about five-sixths of which is in various metres,
the remaining portion being in prose. The whole mass is divided
into twenty books. The principle of distribution is for the most
part a merely formal one, in books i.-xiii. pieces of the same or about
the same number of verses being placed together in the same book.
The next five books, xiv.-xviii., have each its own special subject:
xiv. treats of marriage and sexual union; xv., in prose, of the Vrātya,
or religious vagrant; xvi. consists chiefly of prose formulas of
conjuration; xvii. of a lengthy mystic hymn; and xviii. contains
all that relates to death and funeral rites. Of the last two books no
account is taken in the Atharva-prātiśākhya, and they indeed stand
clearly in the relation of supplements to the original collection.
The nineteenth book evidently was the result of a subsequent
gleaning of pieces similar to those of the earlier books, which had
probably escaped the collectors' attention; while the last book,
consisting almost entirely of hymns to Indra, taken from the
Ṛik-saṃhitā, is nothing more than a liturgical manual of recitations and
chants required at the Soma sacrifice; its only original portion being
the, ten so-called kuntāpa hymns (127-136), consisting partly of
laudatory recitals of generous patrons of sacrificial priests and
partly of riddles and didactic subjects.

The Atharvan has come down to us in a much less satisfactory
state of preservation than any of the other Saṃhitās, and its
interpretation, which offers considerable difficulties on account of numerous
popular and out-of-the-way expressions, has so far received
comparatively little aid from native sources. Less help, in this
respect, than might have been expected, is afforded by a recently
published commentary professing to have been composed by Sāyaṇa
Āchārya; serious doubts have indeed been thrown on the authenticity
of its ascription to the famous Vedic exegetic. Of very considerable
importance, on the other hand, was the discovery in
Kashmir of a second recension of the Atharva-saṃhitā, contained
in a single birch-bark MS., written in the Śāradā character, and
lately made available by an excellent chromo-photographic
reproduction. This new recension,[65] ascribed in the colophons of the MS.
to the Paippalāda school, consists likewise of twenty books (kāṇḍa),
but both in textual matter and in its arrangement it differs very
much from the current text. A considerable portion of the latter,
including the whole of the eighteenth book, is wanting; while the
hymns of the nineteenth book are for the most part found also in
this text, though not as a separate book, but scattered over the
whole collection. The twentieth book is wanting, with the exception
of a few of the verses not taken from the Ṛik. As a set-off to these
shortcomings the new version offers, however, a good deal of fresh
matter, amounting to about one-sixth of the whole. From the
Mahābhāshya and other works quoting as the beginning of the
Atharva-saṃhitā a verse that coincides with the first verse of the
sixth hymn of the current text, it has long been known that at
least one other recension must have existed; but the first leaf of
the Kashmir MS. having been lost, it cannot be determined whether
the new recension (as seems all but certain) corresponds to the one
referred to in those works.

The only Brāhmaṇa of the Atharvan, the Gopatha-brāhmaṇa,[66]
is doubtless one of the most modern and least important works
Atharva-veda-brāhmaṇa.
of its class. It consists of two parts, the first of which
contains cosmogonic speculations, interspersed with
legends, mostly adapted from other Brāhmaṇas, and
general instructions on religious duties and observances;
while the second part treats, in a very desultory manner, of various
points of the sacrificial ceremonial.

​The Kalpa-sūtras belonging to this Veda comprise both a manual
of śrauta rites, the Vaitāna-sūtra,[67] and a manual of domestic rites,
Atharva-veda-sūtras.
the Kauśika-sūtra.[68] The latter treatise is not only the
more interesting of the two, but also the more ancient,
being actually quoted in the other. The teacher Kauśika
is repeatedly referred to in the work on points of ceremonial
doctrine. Connected with this Sūtra are upwards of seventy Pariśishtas,[69]
or supplementary treatises, mostly in metrical form, on various
subjects bearing on the performance of grihya rites. The last sūtra-work
to be noticed in connexion with this Veda is the ŚaunakīyāChaturādhyāyikā,[70] being a Prātiśākhya of the Atharva-saṃhitā, so
called from its consisting of four lectures (adhyāya). Although
Śaunaka can hardly be credited with being the actual author of the
work, considering that his opinion is rejected in the only rule where
his name appears, there is no reason to doubt that it chiefly embodies
the phonetic theories of that teacher, which were afterwards
perfected by members of his school. Whether this Śaunaka is
identical with the writer of that name to whom the final redaction
of the Sākalaprātiśākhya of the Ṛik is ascribed is not known; but
it is worthy of note that on at least two points where Śākalya is
quoted by Pāṇini, the Chaturādhyāyikā seems to be referred to
rather than the Ṛik-prātiśākhya. Śaunaka is quoted once in the
Vājasaneyi-prātiśākhya; and it is possible that Kātyāyana had the
Chaturādhyāyikā in view, though is reference does not quite tally
with the respective rule of that work.

Another class of writings already alluded to as traditionally
connected with the Atharvaveda are the numerous Upanishads[71]Upanishads.
which do not specially attach themselves to one or other
of the Saṃhitās or Brāhmaṇas of the other Vedas. The
Ātharvaṇa-upanishads, mostly composed in ślokas, may
be roughly divided into two classes, viz. those of a purely speculative
or general pantheistic character, treating chiefly of the nature of
the supreme spirit, and the means of attaining to union therewith,
and those of a sectarian tendency. Of the former category, a limited
number—such as the Praśna, Muṇḍaka, and Māṇḍūkya-upanishads—have
probably to be assigned to the later period of Vedic literature;
whilst the others presuppose more or less distinctly the existence
of some fully developed system of philosophy, especially the Vedānta
or the Yoga. The sectarian Upanishads, on the other hand identifying
the supreme spirit either with one of the forms of Vishṇu
(such as the Nārāyaṇa, Nṛisiṃha-tāpanīya, Rāma-tāpanīya,
Gopāla-tāpanīya Upanishads), or with Śiva (e.g. the Rudropanishad), or with
some other deity—belong to post-Vedic times.

2. The Classical Period

The Classical Literature of India is almost entirely a product
of artificial growth, in the sense that its vehicle was not the
language of the general body of the people, but of a small and
educated class. It would scarcely be possible, even approximately,
to fix the time when the literary idiom ceased to be
understood by the common people. We only know that in the
3rd century B.C. there existed several dialects in different parts
of northern India which differed considerably from the Sanskrit;
and Buddhist tradition states that Gautama Śākyamuni himself,
in the 6th century B.C., used the local dialect of Magadha (Behar)
for preaching his new doctrine. Not unlikely, indeed, popular
dialects, differing perhaps but slightly from one another, may
have existed as early as the time of the Vedic hymns, when the
Indo-Aryans, divided into clans and tribes, occupied the Land
of the Seven Rivers; but such dialects must have sprung up
after the extension of the Aryan sway and language over the
whole breadth of northern India. But there is no reason why,
even with the existence of local dialects, the literary language
should not have kept in touch with the people in India, as elsewhere,
save for the fact that from a certain time that language
remained altogether stationary, allowing the vernacular dialects
more and more to diverge from it. Although linguistic research
had been successfully carried on in India for centuries, the actual
grammatical fixation of Sanskrit seems to have taken place about
contemporaneously with the first spread of Buddhism; and
indeed that popular religious movement undoubtedly exercised
a. powerful influence on the linguistic development of India.

A. Poetical Literature.

1. Epic Poems.—The Hindus, like the Greeks, possess two
great national epics, the Mahābhārata and the Rāmāyaṇa.
The national epics.
The Mahābhārata,[72]i.e. “the great (poem or tale) of
the Bhāratas,” is not so much a uniform epic poem as
a miscellaneous collection of poetry, consisting of a
heterogeneous mass of legendary and didactic matter,
worked into and round a central heroic narrative. The authorship
of this work is aptly attributed to Vyāsa, “the arranger,”
the personification of Indian diaskeuasis. Only the bare outline
of the leading story can here be given.

In the royal line of Hastināpura (the ancient Delhi)—claiming
descent from the moon, and hence called the Lunar race
(somavaṃśa), and counting among its ancestors King Bharata, after
whom India is called Bhārata-varsha (land of the Bhāratas)—the
succession lay between two brothers, when Dhṛitarāshṭra, the elder,
being blind, had to make way for his brother Pāṇḍu. After a time
the latter retired to the forest to pass the remainder of his life in
hunting; and Dhṛitarāshṭra assumed the government, assisted by
his uncle Bhīshma, the Nestor of the poem. After some years
Pāṇḍu died, leaving five sons, viz. Yudhishṭhira, Bhīma and
Arjuna by his chief wife Kuntī, and the twins Nakula and Sahadeva
by Mādrī. The latter having burnt herself along with her dead
husband, Kuntī returned with the five princes to Hastināpura, and
was well received by the king, who offered to have his nephews
brought up together with his own sons, of whom he had a hundred,
Duryodhana being the eldest. From their great-grandfather Kuru
both families are called Kauravas; but for distinction that name is
more usually applied to the sons of Dhṛitarāshṭra, while their
cousins, as the younger line, are named, after their father, Pāṇḍavas.
The rivalry and varying fortunes of these two houses form the
main plot of the great epopee. The Pāṇḍu princes soon proved
themselves greatly superior to their cousins; and Yudhishṭhira,
the eldest of them all, was to be appointed heir-apparent. But,
by his son's advice, the king, good-natured but weak, induced his
nephews for a time to retire from court and reside at a house where
the unscrupulous Duryodhana meant to destroy them. They
escaped, however, and passed some time in the forest with their
mother. Here Draupadī, daughter of King Drupada of Panchāla,
won by Arjuna in open contest, became the wife of the five brothers.
On that occasion they also met their cousin, Kuntī's nephew, the
famous Yādava prince Kṛishṇa of Dvārakā, who ever afterwards
remained their faithful friend and confidential adviser.
Dhṛitarāshṭra now resolved to divide the kingdom between the two houses;
whereupon the Pāṇḍavas built for themselves the city of Indraprastha
(on the site of the modern Delhi). After a time of great prosperity,
Yudhishṭhira, in a game of dice, lost everything to Duryodhana,
when it was settled that the Pāṇḍavas should retire to the forest
for twelve years, but should afterwards be restored to their kingdom
if they succeeded in passing an additional year in disguise, without
being recognized by any one. During their forest-life they met with
many adventures, among which may be mentioned their encounter
with King Jayadratha of Chedi, who had carried off Draupadī
from their hermitage. After the twelfth year had expired they
leave the forest, and, assuming various disguises, take service at
the court of King Virata of Matsya. Here all goes well for a time
till the queen's brother Kīchaka, a great warrior and commander of
the royal forces, falls in love with Draupadī, and is slain by Bhīma.
The Kauravas, profiting by Kīchaka's death, now invade the
Matsyan kingdom, when the Pāṇḍavas side with King Virāṭa, and
there ensues, on the field of Kurukshetra, during eighteen days, a
series of fierce battles, ending in the annihilation of the Kauravas.
Yudhishṭhira now at last becomes yuva-rāja, and eventually
king-Dhṛitarāshṭra having resigned and retired with his wife and Kuntī
to the forest, where they soon after perish in a conflagration. Learning
also the death of Kṛishṇa, Yudhishṭhira himself at last becomes
tired of life and resigns his crown; and the five princes, with their
faithful wife, and a dog that joins them, set out for Mount Meru,
to seek admission to Indra's heaven. On the way one by one drops
off, till Yudhishṭhira alone, with the dog, reaches the gate of heaven;
but, the dog being refused admittance, the king declines entering ​without it, when the dog turns out to be no other than the god of
Justice himself, having assumed that form to test Yudhishṭhira's
constancy. But, finding neither his wife nor his brothers in heaven,
and being told that they are in the nether world to expiate their
sins, the king insists on sharing their fate, when this, too, proves a
trial, and they are all reunited to enjoy perpetual bliss.

The complete work consists of upwards of 100,000 couplet—its
contents thus being nearly eight times the bulk of the Iliad
and Odyssey combined. It is divided into eighteen books, and
a supplement, entitled Harivaṃśa, or genealogy of the god Hari
(Kṛishṇa-Vishṇu). In the introduction, Vyāsa, being about to
dictate the poem, is made to say (i. 81) that so far he and some
of his disciples knew 8800 couplets; and farther on (i. 101) he
is said to have composed the collection relating to the Bhāratas
(bhārata-saṃhitā), and called the Bhāratam, which, not including
the episodes, consisted of 24,000 ślokas. Now, as a matter of
fact, the portion relating to the feud of the rival houses constitutes
somewhere between a fourth and a fifth of the work;
and it is by no means improbable that this portion once formed
a separate poem, called the Bhārata. But, whether the former
statement is to be understood as implying the existence, at a still
earlier time, of a yet shorter version of about one-third of the
present extent of the leading narrative, cannot now be determined.
While some of the episodes are so loosely connected with the
story as to be readily severed from it, others are so closely interwoven
with it that their removal would seriously injure the very
texture of the work. This, however, only shows that the original
poem must have undergone some kind of revision, or perhaps
repeated revisions. That such has indeed taken place, at the
hand of Brāhmans, for sectarian and caste purposes, cannot be
doubted. According to Lassen's opinion,[73] which has been very
generally accepted by scholars, the main story of the poem would
be based on historical events, viz. on a destructive war waged
between the two neighbouring peoples of the Kurus and
Panchālas, who occupied the western and eastern parts of the
Madhyadeśa (or “middle land” between the Ganges and Jumna)
respectively, and ending in the overthrow of the Kuru dynasty.
On the original accounts of these events—perhaps handed down
in the form of lays or sagas—the Pāṇḍava element would
subsequently have been grafted as calculated to promote the
class interests of the Brāhmanical revisers. It is certainly a
strange coincidence that the five Pāṇḍava princes should have
taken to wife the daughter of the king of the Panchālas, and
thus have linked their fortunes to a people which is represented,
in accordance with its name, to have consisted of five (pancha)
tribes.

The earliest direct information regarding the existence of epic
poetry in India is contained in a passage of Dion Chrysostom
(c.A.D. 80), according to which “even among the Indians, they
say, Homer's poetry is sung, having been translated by them
into their own dialect and tongue”; and “the Indians are well
acquainted with the sufferings of Priam, the lamentations and
wails of Andromache and Hecuba, and the prowess of Achilles
and Hector.” Now, although these allusions would suit either
poem, they seem to correspond best to certain incidents in the
Mahābhārata, especially as no direct mention is made of a warlike
expedition to a remote island for the rescue of an abducted
woman, the resemblance of which to the Trojan expedition
would naturally have struck a Greek becoming acquainted with
the general outline of the Rāmāyaṇa. Whence Dion derived
his information is not known; but as many leading names of
the Mahābhārata and even the name of the poem itself[74] are
mentioned in Pāṇini's grammatical rules, not only must the
Bhārata legend have been current in his time (? c. 400 B.C.),
but most probably it existed already in poetical form, as
undoubtedly it did at the time of Patanjali, the author of the
“great commentary” on Pāṇini (c. 150 B.C.). The great epic is
also mentioned, both as Bhārata and Mahābhārata, in the
Gṛihya-sūtra of Āśvalāyana, whom Lassen supposes to have
lived about 350 B.C. Nevertheless it must remain uncertain
whether the poem was then already in the form in which we
now have it, at least as far as the leading story and perhaps
some of the episodes are concerned, a large portion of the
episodical matter being clearly of later origin. It cannot,
however, be doubted that long before that time heroic song had
been diligently cultivated in India at the courts of princes and
among Kshatriyas, the knightly order, generally. In the
Mahābhārata itself the transmission of epic legend is in some way
connected with the Sūtas, a social class which, in the caste system,
is defined as resulting from the union of Kshatriya men
with Brāhmaṇa Women, and which supplied the office of
charioteers and heralds, as well as (along with the Māgadhas)
that of professional minstrels. Be this as it may, there is reason
to believe that, as Hellas had her ἀοιδοί who sang the κλέα ἀνδρῶν,
and Iceland her skalds who recited favourite sagas, so India had
from olden times her professional bards, who delighted to sing
the praises of kings and inspire the knights with warlike feelings.
If in this way a stock of heroic poetry had gradually accumulated
which reflected an earlier state of society and manners, we can
well understand why, after the Brāhmanical order of things
had been definitely established, the priests should have deemed
it desirable to subject these traditional memorials of Kshatriya
chivalry and prestige to their own censorship, and adapt them to
their own canons of religious and civil law. Such a revision
would doubtless require considerable skill and tact; and if in
the present version of the work much remains that seems contrary
to the Brāhmanical code and pretensions—e.g. the polyandric
union of Draupadī and the Pāṇḍu princes—the reason probably
is that such features were too firmly rooted in the popular tradition
to be readily eliminated; and all the revisers could do was
to explain them away as best they could. Thus Draupadī's
abnormal position is actually accounted for in five different ways,
one of these representing it as an act of duty and filial obedience
on the part of Arjuna who, on bringing home his fair prize and
announcing it to his mother, is told by her, before seeing what it
is, to share it with his brothers. Nay, it has even been seriously
argued that the Brāhmanical editors have completely changed
the traditional relations of the leading characters of the story.
For, although the Pāṇḍavas and their cousin Kṛishṇa are constantly
extolled as models of virtue and goodness, while the
Kauravas and their friend Karṇa—a son of the sun-god, borne by
Kuntī before her marriage with Pāṇḍu, and brought up secretly
as the son of a Sūta—are decried as monsters of depravity, these
estimates of the heroes' characters are not infrequently belied
by their actions—especially the honest Karṇa and the brave
Duryodhana (i.e. “the bad fighter,” but formerly called Suyodhana,
“the good fighter”) contrasting not unfavourably with
the wily Kṛishṇa and the cautious and somewhat effeminate
Yudhishṭhira. These considerations, coupled with certain
peculiarities on the part of the Kauravas, apparently suggestive
of an original connexion of the latter with Buddhist institutions,
have led Dr Holtzmann to devise an ingenious theory, viz.
that the traditional stock of legends was first worked up into
a connected narrative by some Buddhist poet—most likely at
the time of the emperor Aśoka (c. 250 B.C.), whom the Kaurava
hero Suyodhana might even seem to have been intended to
represent—and that this poem, showing a decided predilection
for the Kuru party as the representatives of Buddhist principles,
was afterwards revised in a contrary sense, at the time of the
Brāhmanical reaction, by votaries of Vishṇu, when the Buddhist
features were generally modified into Śaivite tendencies, and
prominence was given to the divine nature of Kṛishṇa, as an
incarnation of Vishṇu. As this theory would, however, seem to
involve the Brāhmanical revision of the poem having taken place
subsequent to the decline of Buddhist predominance, it would
shift the completion of the work to a considerably later date than
would be consistent with other evidence. From inscriptions we
know that by the end of the 5th century A.D. the Mahābhārata
was appealed to as an authority on matters of law, and that its
extent was practically what it now is, including its supplement,
the Harivaṃśa. Indeed, everything seems to point to the
probability of the work having been complete by about A.D. 200.
But, whilst Bhārata and Kuru heroic lays may, and probably ​do, go back to a much earlier age, it seems hardly possible to
assume that the Pāṇḍava epic in its present form can have been
composed before the Greek invasion of India, or about 300 B.C.
Moreover, it is by no means impossible that the epic narrative
was originally composed—as some other portions of the works
are—in prose, either continuous or mixed with snatches of verse.
Nay, in the opinion of some scholars, this poem (as well as the
Rāmāyaṇa) may even have been originally composed in some
popular dialect, which would certainly best account for the
irregular and apparently prākritic or dialectic forms in which
these works abound. The leading position occupied in the existing
epic by Kṛishṇa (whence it is actually called kārshṇa veda,
or the veda of Kṛishṇa), and the Vaishṇava spirit pervading it,
make it very probable that it assumed its final form under the
influence of the Bhāgavata sect with whom Vāsudeva (Kṛishṇa),
originally apparently a venerated local hero, came to be regarded
as a veritable god, and incarnation of Vishṇu. Its culminating
point this sectarian feature attains in the Bhagavad-gītā (i.e. the
upanishad), “sung by the holy one”—the famous theosophic
episode, in which Kṛishṇa, in lofty and highly poetic language,
expounds the doctrine of faith (bhakti) and claims adoration as
the incarnation of the supreme spirit. Of the purely legendary
matter incorporated with the leading story of the poem, not a
little, doubtless, is at least as old as the latter itself. Some of
these episodes—especially the well-known story of Nala and
Damayantī, and the touching legend of Sāvitrī—form themselves
little epic gems of considerable poetic value.

The Rāmāyaṇa, i.e. poem “relating to Rāma,” is ascribed to
the poet Vālmīki; and, allowance being made for some later
additions, the poem indeed presents the appearance of being
the work of an individual genius. In its present form it consists
of some 24,000 ślokas, or 48,000 lines of sixteen syllables, divided
into seven books.

(I.) King Daśaratha of Kośala, reigning at Ayodhyā (Oudh),
has four sons borne him by three wives, viz. Rāma, Bharata and
the twins Lakshmaṇa and Śatrughna. Rāma, by being able to
bend an enormous bow, formerly the dreaded weapon of the god
Rudra, wins for a wife Sitā, daughter of Janaka, king of Videha
(Tirhut). (II.) On his return to Ayodhyā he is to be appointed
heir-apparent (yuva-rāja, i.e. juvenis rex); but Bharata's mother
persuades the king to banish his eldest son for fourteen years to
the wilderness, and appoint her son instead. Separation from his
favourite son soon breaks the king's heart; whereupon the ministers
call on Bharata to assume the reins of government. He refuses,
however, and, betaking himself to Rāma's retreat on the Chitrakūṭa
mountain (in Bundelkhund), implores him to return; but, unable
to shake Rāma's resolve to complete his term of exile, he consents
to take charge of the kingdom in the meantime. (III.) After a
ten years' residence in the forest, Rāma attracts the attention of a
female demon (rākshasī); and, infuriated by the rejection of her
advances, and by the wounds inflicted on her by Lakshmaṇa, who
keeps Rāma company, she inspires her brother Rāvaṇa, demon king
of Ceylon, with love for Sītā, in consequence of which the
latter is carried off by him to his capital Lankā. While she resolutely
rejects the Rākshasa's addresses, Rāma sets out with his brother
to her rescue. (IV.) After numerous adventures they enter into an
alliance with Sugrīva, king of the monkeys; and, with the assistance
of the monkey-general Hanumān, and Rāvaṇa's own brother
Vibhīshaṇa, they prepare to assault Lankā. (V.) The monkeys,
tearing up rocks and trees, construct a passage across the straits—the
so-called Adam's Bridge, still designated Rāma's Bridge in India.
(VI.) Having crossed over with his allies, Rāma, after many hot
encounters and miraculous deeds, slays the demon and captures the
stronghold; whereupon he places Vibhīshaṇa on the throne of
Lankā. To allay Rāma's misgivings as to any taint she might have
incurred through contact with the demon, Sītā now successfully
undergoes an ordeal by fire; after which they return to Ayodhyā,
where, after a triumphal entry, Rāma is installed. (VII.) Rāma,
however, seeing that the people are not yet satisfied of Sītā's purity,
resolves to put her away; whereupon, in the forest, she falls in with
Vālmīki himself, and at his hermitage gives birth to two sons.
While growing up there, they are taught by the sage the use of the
bow, as well as the Vedas, and the Rāmāyaṇa as far as the capture
of Lankā and the royal entry into Ayodhyā. Ultimately Rāma
discovers and recognizes them by their wonderful deeds and their
likeness to himself, and takes his wife and sons back with him.

The last book, as will be noticed from this bare outline, presents
a somewhat strange appearance. There can be little doubt that
it is a later addition to the work; and the same is apparently
the case as regards the first book, with the exception of certain
portions which would seem to have formed the beginning of the
original poem. In these two books the character of Rāma
appears changed: he has become deified and identified with the
god Vishṇu, whilst in the body of the poem his character is
simply that of a perfect man and model hero. As regards the
general idea underlying the leading story, whilst the first part of
the narrative can hardly be said to differ materially from other
historical and knightly romances, the second part—the expedition
to Lankā—on the other hand has called forth different
theories, without, however, any general agreement having so
far been arrived at. Whilst Lassen and Weber would see in
this warlike expedition a poetical representation of the spread
of Aryan rule and civilization over southern India, Talboys
Wheeler took the demons of Lankā, against whom Rāma's
campaign is directed, to be intended for the Buddhists of Ceylon.
More recently, again, Professor Jacobi[75] of Bonn has endeavoured
to prove that the poem has neither an allegorical nor a religious
tendency, but that its background is a purely mythological
one—Rama representing the god Indra, and Sītā—in accordance with
the meaning of the name—the personified “Furrow,” as which
she is already invoked in the Ṛigveda, and hence is a tutelary
spirit of the tilled earth, wedded to Indra, the Jupiter Pluvius.
Moreover, from a comparison of the narrative of the poem with
a popular version of it, contained in one of the Pāli
“birth-stories,” the Daśaratha-jātaka, which lacks the second part of
the story, Professor Weber tried to show that the expedition of
Lankā cannot have formed part of the original epic, but was
probably based on some general acquaintance with the Troy
legend of Greek poetry.

A remarkable feature of this poem is the great variation of its
textual condition in different parts of the country, amounting
in fact to at least three different recensions. The text most
widely prevalent both in the north and south has been printed
repeatedly, with commentary, at Bombay, and was taken by
Mr R. T. H. Griffith as the basis for his beautiful poetical translation.[76]
The so-called Gauḍa or Bengal recension, on the other
hand, which differs most of all, has been edited, with an Italian
prose translation, by G. Gorresio;[77] whilst the third recension,
recognized chiefly in Kashmir and western India, is so far known
only from manuscripts. The mutual relation of these versions
will appear from the fact that about one-third of the matter
of each recension is not found in the other two; whilst in the
common portions, too, there are great variations both in regard
to the order of verses and to textual readings. To account for
this extraordinary textual diversity, it has been suggested that
the poem was most likely originally composed in a popular
dialect, and was thence turned into Sanskrit by different hands
trying to improve on one another; whilst Professor Jacobi
would rather ascribe the difference to the fact that the poem
was for a long time handed down orally in Sanskrit by
rhapsodists, or professional minstrels, when such variations might
naturally arise in different parts of the country. Yet another
version of the same story, with, however, many important
variations of details, forms an episode of the Mahābhārata, the
Rāmopākhyāna, the relation of which to Vālmīki's work is still
a matter of uncertainty. In respect of both versification and
diction the Rāmāyaṇa is of a distinctly more refined character
than the larger poem; and, indeed, Vālmīki is seen already to
cultivate some of that artistic style of poetry which was carried
to excess in the later artificial Kāvyas, whence the title of
ādi-kavi, or first poet, is commonly applied to him. Though the
political conditions reflected in the older parts of the Rāmāyaṇa
seem to correspond best to those of pre-Buddhistic times, this
might after all only apply to the poetic material handed down
orally and eventually cast into its present form. To characterize
the Indian epics in a single word: though often disfigured
by grotesque fancies and wild exaggerations, they are yet noble
works, abounding in passages of remarkable descriptive power, ​intense pathos, and high poetic grace and beauty; and while,
as works of art, they are far inferior to the Greek epics, in some
respects they appeal far more strongly to the romantic mind of
Europe, namely, by their loving appreciation of natural beauty,
their exquisite delineation of womanly love and devotion, and
their tender sentiment of mercy and forgiveness.

2. Purāṇas and Tantras.—The Purāṇas[78] are partly legendary
partly speculative histories of the universe, compiled for the
Purāṇas.
purpose of promoting some special, locally prevalent
form of Brāhmanical belief. They are sometimes
styled a fifth Veda, and may indeed in a certain sense be looked
upon as the scriptures of Brāhmanical India. The term purāṇa,
signifying “old,” applied originally to prehistoric, especially
cosmogonic, legends, and then to collections of ancient traditions
generally. The existing works of this class, though recognizing
the Brāhmanical doctrine of the Trimūrti, or triple manifestation
of the deity (in its creative, preservative and destructive activity),
are all of a sectarian tendency, being intended to establish, on
quasi-historic grounds, the claims of some special god, or holy
place, on the devotion of the people. For this purpose the
compilers have pressed into their service a mass of extraneous
didactic matter on all manner of subjects, whereby these works
had become a kind of popular encyclopedias of useful knowledge.
It is evident, however, from a comparatively early
definition given of the typical Purāṇa, as well as from numerous
coincidences of the existing works, that they are based on, or
enlarged from, older works of this kind, more limited in their
scope and probably of a more decidedly tritheistic tendency of
belief. Thus none of the Purāṇas, as now extant, is probably
much above a thousand years old, though a considerable proportion
of their materials is doubtless much older, and may perhaps
in part go back to several centuries before the Christian era.

In legendary matter the Purāṇas have a good deal in common
with the epics, especially the Mahābhārata—the compilers or
revisers of both classes of works having evidently drawn their
materials from the same fluctuating mass of popular traditions.
They are almost entirely composed in the epic couplet, and indeed
in much the same easy flowing style as the epic poems, to which
they are, however, as a rule greatly inferior in poetic value.

According to the traditional classification of these works, there
are said to be eighteen (Mahā-, or great) Purāṇas, and as many
Upa-purāṇas, or subordinate Purāṇas. The former are by some
authorities divided into three groups of six, according as one or
other of the three primary qualities of external existence—goodness,
darkness (ignorance), and passion—is supposed to prevail in them,
viz. the Vishṇu, Nāradīya, Bhāgavata, Garuḍa, Padma,
Varāha—Matsya, Kūrma, Linga, Śiva, Skanda,
Agni—Brahmāṇḍa,
Brahmavaivarta, Mārkaṇḍeya, Bhavishya, Vāmana and Brahma-Purāṇas.
In accordance with the nature of the several forms of the Trimūrti,
the first two groups chiefly devote themselves to the commendation
of Vishṇu and Siva respectively, whilst the third group, which
would properly belong to Brahman, has been largely appropriated
for the promotion of the claims of other deities, viz. Vishṇu in his
sensuous form of Kṛishṇa, Devī, Gaṇeśa, and Sūrya. As Professor
Banerjea has shown in his preface to the Mārkaṇḍeya, this seems to
have been chiefly effected by later additions and interpolations.
The insufficiency of the above classification, however, appears even
from the fact that it omits the Vāyu-purāṇa, probably one of the
oldest of all, though some MSS. substitute it for one or other name
of the second group. The eighteen principal Purāṇas are said to
consist of together 400,000 couplets. In northern India the Vaishṇava
Purāṇas, especially the Bhāgavata and Vishṇu,[79] are by far the
most popular. Th; Bhāgavata was formerly supposed to have been
composed by Vopadeva, the grammarian, who lived in the 13th
century. It has, however, been shown[80] that what he wrote was a
synopsis of the Purāṇa, and that the latter is already quoted in a
work by Ballāla Sena of Bengal, in the 11th century. It is certainly
held in the highest estimation, and, especially through the vernacular
versions of its tenth book, treating of the story of Kṛishṇa, has
powerfully influenced the religious belief of India.

From the little we know regarding the Upa-purāṇas, their
character does not seem to differ very much from that of the principal
sectarian Purāṇas. Besides these two classes of works there is a
large number of so-called Sthala-purāṇas, or chronicles recounting
the history and merits of some holy “place” or shrine, where their
recitation usually forms an important part of the daily service.
Of much the same nature are the numerous Māhātmyas (literally
“relating to the great spirit”), which usually profess to be sections
of one or other Purāṇa. Thus the Devī-māhātmya, which celebrates
the victories of the great “goddess” over the Asuras, and is daily
read at the temples of that deity, forms a section, though doubtless
an interpolated one, of the Mārkaṇḍeya-purāṇa. Similarly the
Adhyātma-Rāmāyaṇa, a kind of spiritualized version of Vālmīkī's
poem, forms part of the Brahmāṇḍa-purāṇa which (like the Skanda)
seems hardly to exist in an independent form, but to be made up
of a large number of Māhātmyas.

The Tantras[81] have to be considered as partly a collateral and
partly a later development of the sectarian Purāṇas; though,
unlike these, they can hardly lay claim to any intrinsic poetic
value. These works are looked upon as their sacred writings
by the numerous Śāktas, or worshippers of the female energy
(śakti) of some god, especially the wife of Śiva, in one of her
many forms (Pārvatī, Devī, Kālī, Bhavānī, Durgā, &c.). This
worship of a female representation of the divine power appears
already in some of the Purāṇas; but in the Tantras it assumes
quite a peculiar character, being largely intermixed with magic
performances and mystic rites, partly, indeed, of a grossly immoral
nature (see Hinduism). Of this class of writings no specimen would
appear to have as yet been in existence at the time of Amarasiṃha
(6th century), though they are mentioned in some of the Purāṇas.
They are usually in the form of a dialogue between Śiva and
his wife. The number of original Tantras is fixed at sixty-four,
but they still await a critical examination at the hands of scholars.
Among the best known may be mentioned the Rudrayāmala,
Kulārṇava, Śyāmā-rahasya and Kālikā-tantra.

3. Artificial Epics and Romances.—In the early centuries of
the Christian era a new class of epic poems begins to make its
Modern epics.
appearance, differing widely in character from those that
had preceded it. The great national epics, composed
though they were in a language different from the
ordinary vernaculars, had at least been drawn from the living
stream of popular tradition, and were doubtless readily understood
and enjoyed by at least the educated classes of the people.
The later productions, on the other hand, are of a decidedly
artificial character, and must necessarily have been beyond
the reach of any but the highly cultivated. They are, on the
whole, singularly deficient in incident and invention, their
subject matter being almost entirely derived from the old epics.
Nevertheless, these works are by no means devoid of merit
and interest; and a number of them display considerable
descriptive power and a wealth of genuine poetic sentiment,
though unfortunately often clothed in language that deprives
it of half its value. The simple heroic couplet has mostly been
discarded for various more or less elaborate metres; and in
accordance with this change of form the diction becomes gradually
more complicated—a growing taste for unwieldy compounds,
a jingling kind of alliteration, or rather agnomination, and an
abuse of similes marking the increasing artificiality of these
productions.

The generic appellation of such works is kāvya, which, meaning
“poem,” or the work of an individual poet (kavi), is, as we have
seen, already applied to the Rāmāyaṇa. Six poems of this kind are
singled out by native rhetoricians as standard works, under the title
of Mahākāvya, or great poems. Two of these are ascribed to the
famous dramatist Kālidāsa, the most prominent figure of this period
of Indian literature and truly a master of the poetic art. In a
comparatively modern couplet he is represented as having been one of
nine literary “gems” at the court of a king Vikramāditya, who was
supposed to have originated the so-called Vikrama era, dating from
56-57 B.C. Recent research has, however, shown that this name
was only applied to the era from about A.D. 800, and that the latter
was already used in inscriptions of the 5th century under the name
of the Mālava era. Hence also Fergusson's theory that it was
founded by King Vikramāditya Harsha of Ujjayinī (Ujjain or ​Oujein) in A.D. 544 and ante-dated by 600 years, falls to the ground;
and with it Max Müller's theory[82] of an Indian Renaissance inaugurated
during the reign of that king. Though Kālidāsa's date
thus remains still uncertain, the probability is that he flourished
at Ujjayinī about 440–448 A.D. Of the principal poets of this
class, whose works have come down to us, he appears to be one of the
earliest; but there can be little doubt that he was preceded in this
as in other departments of poetic composition by many lesser lights,
eclipsed by the sun of his fame, and forgotten. Thus the recently
discovered Buddhacharita,[83] a Sanskrit poem on the life of the reformer,
which was translated into Chinese about A.D. 420, and the
author of which, Aśvaghosha, is placed by Buddhist tradition as
early as the time of Kanishka (who began to reign in A.D. 78), calls
itself, not without reason, a “mahākāvya”; and the panegyrics
contained in some of the inscriptions of the 4th century[84] likewise
display, both in verse and ornate prose, many of the characteristic
features of the kāvya style of composition. Indeed, a number of
quotations in the Mahābhāshya[85] the commentary on Pāṇini, go far
to show that the kāvya style was already cultivated at the time of
Patanjali, whose date can hardly be placed later than the 1st century
of the Christian era, though it may, and probably does, go back to
the 2nd century B.C.

Of the six universally recognized “great poems” here enumerated
the first two, and doubtless the two finest, are those attributed to
Kālidāsa. (1) The Raghuvaṃśa,[86] or “race of Raghu,” celebrates the
ancestry and deeds of Rāma. The work, consisting of nineteen
cantos, is manifestly incomplete; but hitherto no copy has been
discovered of the six additional cantos which are supposed to have
completed it. (2) The Kumāra-sambhava[87] or “the birth of (the
war-god) Kumāra” (or Skanda), the son of Śiva and Pārvatī, consists
of seventeen cantos, the last ten of which were, however, not
commented upon by Mallinātha, and are usually omitted in the MSS.;
whence they are still looked upon as spurious by many scholars,
though they may only have been set aside on account of their
amorous character rendering them unsuitable for educational
purposes, for which the works of Kālidāsa are extensively used in
India; the 8th canto, at any rate, being quoted by Vāmana (c.A.D.
700). Another poem of this class, the Nalodaya,[88] or “rise of Nala”—describing
the restoration of that king, after having lost his kingdom
through gambling—is wrongly ascribed to Kālidāsa, being far
inferior to the other works, and of a much more artificial character.
(3) The Kirātārjunīya,[89] or combat between the Pāṇḍava prince
Arjuna and the god Śiva, in the guise of a Kirāta or wild mountaineer,
is a poem in eighteen cantos, by Bhāravi, who is mentioned
together with Kālidāsa in an inscription dated A.D. 634. (4) The
Śiśupāla-badha, or slaying of Śiśupāla, who, being a prince of Chedi,
reviled Kṛishṇa, who had carried off his intended wife, and was killed
by him at the inauguration sacrifice of Yudhishṭhira, is a poem
consisting of twenty cantos, attributed to Māgha,[90] whence it is also
called Māghakāvya. (5) The Rāvaṇabadha, or “slaying of Rāvaṇa,”
more commonly called Bhaṭṭikāvya, to distinguish it from other
poems (especially one by Pravarasena), likewise bearing the former
title, was composed for the practical purpose of illustrating the less
common grammatical forms and the figures of rhetoric and poetry.
In its closing couplet it professes to have been written at Vallabhī,
under Śridharasena, but, several princes of that name being mentioned
in inscriptions as having ruled there in the 6th and 7th
centuries, its exact date is still uncertain. Bhaṭṭi, apparently the
author's name, is usually identified with the well-known grammarian
Bhartṛihari, whose death Professor M. Müller, from a Chinese
statement, fixes at A.D. 650, while others make him Bhartṛihari's
son. (6) The Naishadhīya, or Naishadha-charita, the life of Nala,
king of Nishadha, is ascribed to Śri-Harsha (son of Hīra), who is
supposed to have lived in the latter part of the 12th century. A
small portion of the simple and noble episode of the Mahābhārata
is here retold in highly elaborate and polished stanzas, and with
a degree of lasciviousness which (unless it be chiefly due to the
poet's exuberance of fancy) gives a truly appalling picture of social
corruption. Another highly esteemed poem, the Rāghava-pāṇḍavīya,
composed by Kavirāja (“king of poets”)—whose date is uncertain,
some scholars placing him about A.D. 800, others later than the 10th
century—is characteristic of the trifling uses to which the poet's
art was put. The well-turned stanzas are so ambiguously worded
that the poem may be interpreted as relating to the leading story
of either the Rāmāyaṇa or the Mahābhārata. Less ambitious in
composition, though styling itself a mahākāvya, is the Vikramānkadevacharita,[91]
a panegyric written about A.D. 1085 by the Kashmir
poet Bilhaṇa, in honour of his patron the Chālukya king Vikramāditya
of Kalyāṇa, regarding the history of whose dynasty it
supplies some valuable information.

In this place may also be mentioned, as composed in accordance
with the Hindu poetic canon, the Rājatarangiṇī,[92] or “river of kings,”
being a chronicle of the kings of Kashmir, and the only important
historical work in the Sanskrit language, though even here considerable
allowance has to be made for poetic licence and fancy.
The work was composed by the Kashmirian poet Kalhaṇa about
1150, and was afterwards continued by three successive supplements,
bringing down the history of Kashmir to the time of the
emperor Akbar. Worthy of mention, in this place, are also two
works on the life of Buddha, which may go back to the 1st century
of the Christian era, viz. the Lalitavistara[93] and the Mahāvastu,[94]
written in fairly correct Sanskrit prose mixed with stanzas
(gāthā) composed in a hybrid, half Prākrit, half Sanskrit form
of language.

Under the general term “kāvya” Indian critics include, however,
not only compositions in verse, but also certain kinds of prose works
composed in choice diction richly embellished with flowers of rhetoric.
The feature generally regarded by writers on poetics as the chief
mark of excellence in this ornate prose style is the frequency and
length of its compounds; whilst for metrical compositions the use
of long compounds is expressly discouraged by some schools of
rhetoric. Moreover, the best specimens of this class of prose writing
are not devoid of a certain musical cadence adapting itself to the
nature of the subject treated. Amongst the works of this class the
most interesting are four so-called kathās (tales) or ākhyāyikās
(novels). The oldest of these is the Daśakumāracharita,[95] or “adventures
of the ten princes”—a vivid, though probably exaggerated,
picture of low-class city life—by Daṇḍin, the author of an excellent
manual of poetics, the Kāvyādarśa, who most likely lived in the
6th century. Probably early in the 7th century, Subandhu composed
his tale Vāsavadattā,[96] taking its name from a princess of Ujjayinī
(Oujein), who in a dream fell in love with Udayana, king of Vatsa,
and, on the latter being decoyed to that city and kept in captivity
by her father, was carried off by him from a rival suitor. The
remaining two works were composed by Bāṇa, the court poet of
King Harshavardhana of Ṭhānesar and Kanauj—who ruled over
the whole of northern India, A.D. 606–648, and at whose court the
Chinese pilgrim Hiuen Thsang resided for some time during his
sojourn in India (630–646)—viz. the Kādambarī,[97] a romantic tale
of a princess of that name; and the apparently never completed
Harshacharita,[98] intended as an historical novel, but practically a
panegyric (praśasti) in favour of the poet's patron, supplying,
however, a valuable picture of the life of the time. Whilst these
tales have occasionally stanzas introduced into them, this feature of
mixed (miśra) verse and prose is especially prominent in another
popular class of romances, the so-called Champūs. Of such works,
which seem to have been rather numerous, it must suffice to mention
two specimens, viz. the Bhārata-champū, in twelve cantos, by
Ananta Bhaṭṭa; and the Champū-rāmāyaṇa, or Bhoja-champū, in
seven books, the first five of which are attributed, doubtless by way
of compliment, to King Bhojarāja of Dhārā.

4. The Drama.[99]—The early history of the Indian drama is
enveloped in obscurity. The Hindus themselves ascribe the
Drama.
origin of dramatic representation to the sage Bharata,
who is fabled to have lived in remote antiquity, and to
have received this science directly from the god Brahman,
by whom it was extracted from the Veda. The term bharata—(?)
i.e. one who is kept, or one who sustains (a part)—also signifies
“an actor”; but it is doubtful which of the two is the ​the appellative use of the word, or the notion of an old teacher
of the dramatic art bearing that name. There still exists an
extensive work, in epic verse, on rhetoric and dramaturgy,
entitled Nā ya-śāstra,[100] and ascribed to Bharata. Though this
is probably the oldest theoretic work on the subject that has come
down to us, it can hardly be referred to an earlier period than
several centuries after the Christian era. Not improbably,
however, this work, which presupposes a fully developed scenic
art, had an origin similar to that of some of the metrical
lawbooks, which are generally supposed to be popular and improved
editions of older sūtra-works. We know that such treatises
existed at the time of Pāṇini, as he mentions two authors of
Naṭa-sūtras, or “rules for actors,” viz. Śilālin and Kṛiśāśva.
Now, the words naṭa and nāṭya—as well as nāṭaka, the common
term for “drama”—being derived (like the modern vernacular
“Nautch” = nṛitya) from the root naṭ (nṛt) “to dance,” seem
to point to a pantomimic or choral origin of the dramatic art.
It might appear doubtful, therefore, in the absence of any
clearer definition in Pāṇini's grammar, whether the “actors'
rules” he mentions did not refer to mere pantomimic performances.
Fortunately, however, Patanjali, in his “great
commentary,” speaks of the actor as singing, and of people going “to
hear the actor.” Nay, he even mentions two subjects, taken
from the cycle of Vishṇu legends—viz. the slaying of Kaṃsa
(by Kṛishṇa) and the binding of Bali (by Vishṇu)—which were
represented on the stage both by mimic action and declamation.
Judging from these allusions, theatrical entertainments in those
days seem to have been very much on a level with the old religious
spectacles or mysteries of Europe, though there may already
have been some simple kinds of secular plays which Patanjali
had no occasion to mention. It is not, however, till some five
or six centuries later that we meet with the first real dramas,
which mark at the same time the very culminating point of
Indian dramatic composition. In this, as in other departments
of literature, the earlier works have had to make way for later
and more perfect productions; and no trace now remains of the
intermediate phases of development. Thus we know of at least
five predecessors of Kālidāsa from whom nothing but a few
quotations have been preserved.

Here, however, the problem presents itself as to whether the
existing dramatic literature has naturally grown out of such
popular religious performances as are alluded to by Patanjali,
or whether some foreign influence has intervened at some time
or other and given a different direction to dramatic composition.
The question has been argued both for and against the probability
of Greek influence; but it must still be considered as sub judice;
the latest investigator, M. Sylvain Lévi, having given a decided
opinion against outside influence. There are doubtless some
curious points of resemblance between the Indian drama and
the Modern Attic (and Roman) comedy, viz. the prologue, the
occasional occurrence of a token of recognition, and a certain
correspondence of characteristic stage figures—especially the
Vidūshaka, or jocose companion of the hero, presenting a certain
analogy to the servus of the Roman stage, as does the Viṭa,
the hero's dissolute, though accomplished, boon-companion,
of some plays, to the Roman parasite—for which the assumption
of some acquaintance with the Greek comedy on the part of the
earlier Hindu writers would afford a ready explanation. On
the other hand, the differences between the Indian and Greek
plays are perhaps even greater than their coincidences, which,
moreover, are scarcely close enough to warrant our calling in
question the originality of the Hindus in this respect. Certain,
however, it is that, if the Indian poets were indebted to Greek
playwrights for the first impulse in dramatic composition, in
the higher sense, they have known admirably how to adapt the
Hellenic muse to the national genius, and have produced a
dramatic literature worthy to be ranked side by side with both
the classical and our own romantic drama. It is to the latter
especially that the general character of the Indian play presents
a striking resemblance, much more so than to the classical drama.
The Hindu dramatist has little regard for the “unities” of the
classical stage, though he is hardly ever guilty of extravagance
in his disregard of them. Unlike the Greek dramatic theory, it
is an invariable rule of Indian dramaturgy, that every play,
however much of the tragic element it may contain, must have a
happy ending. The dialogue is invariably carried on in prose,
plentifully interspersed with those neatly turned lyrical stanzas
in which the Indian poet delights to depict some natural scene,
or some temporary physical or mental condition. The most
striking feature of the Hindu play, however, is the mixed nature
of its language. While the hero and leading male characters
speak Sanskrit, women and inferior male characters use various
Prākrit dialects. As regards these dialectic varieties, it can
hardly be doubted that at the time when they were first employed
in this way they were local vernacular dialects; but in the course
of the development of the scenic art they became permanently
fixed for special dramatic purposes, just as the Sanskrit had,
long before that time, become fixed for general literary purposes.
Thus it would happen that these Prakrit dialects, having once
become stationary, soon diverged from the spoken vernaculars,
until the difference between them was as great as between the
Sanskrit and the Prākrits. As regards the general character
of the dramatic Prākrits, they are somewhat more removed
from the Sanskrit type than the Pāli, the language of the Buddhist
canon, which again is in a rather more advanced state than the
language of the Aśoka inscriptions (c. 250 B.C.). And, as the
Buddhist sacred books were committed to writing about 80 B.C.,
the state of their language is attested for that period at latest;
while the grammatical fixation of the scenic Prākrits has probably
to be referred to the early centuries of the Christian era.

The existing dramatic literature is not very extensive. The
number of plays of all kinds of any literary value will scarcely
amount to fifty. The reason for this paucity of dramatic productions
doubtless is that they appealed to the tastes of only a limited
class of highly cultivated persons, and were in consequence but
seldom acted. As regards the theatrical entertainments of the
common people, their standard seems never to have risen much
above the level of the religious spectacles mentioned by Patanjali.
Such at least is evidently the case as regards the modern Bengālī
jātrās (Skt. yātrās)—described by Wilson as exhibitions of some
incidents in the youthful life of Kṛishṇa, maintained in extempore
dialogue, interspersed with popular songs—as well as the similar
rāsas of the western provinces, and the rough and ready performances
of the bhanrs, or professional buffoons. Of the religious drama
Sanskrit literature offers but one example, viz. the famous
Gītagovinda,[101]
composed by Jayadeva in the 12th century. It is rather
a mytho-lyrical poem, which, however, in the opinion of Lassen,
may be considered as a modern and refined specimen of the early
form of dramatic composition. The subject of the poem is as
follows: Kṛishṇa, while leading a cowherd's life in Vṛindāvana,
is in love with Rādhā, the milkmaid, but has been faithless to her
for a while. Presently, however, he returns to her “whose image
has all the while lingered in his breast,” and after much earnest
entreaty obtains her forgiveness. The emotions appropriate to
these situations are expressed by the two lovers and a friend of
Rādhā in melodious and passionate, if voluptuous, stanzas of great
poetic beauty. Like the Song of Solomon, the Gītagovinda, moreover,
is supposed by the Hindu commentators to admit of a mystic
interpretation; for, “as Kṛishṇa, faithless for a time, discovers the
vanity of all other loves, and returns with sorrow and longing to
his own darling Rādhā, so the human soul, after a brief and frantic
attachment to objects of sense, burns to return to the God from
whence it came” (Griffith).

The Mṛichchhakaṭikā,[102] or “little clay cart,” has been usually
placed at the head of the existing dramas; but, though a certain
clumsiness of construction might seem to justify this distinction, the
question of its relative antiquity remains far from being definitively
settled. Indeed, the fact that neither Kālidāsa, who mentions three
predecessors of his, or Bāṇa, in reviewing. his literary precursors,
makes any allusion to the author of this play, as well as other points,
seem rather to tell against the latter's priority. But seeing that
Vāmana quotes from the Mṛichchhakaṭikā, this play must at any
rate, have been in, existence in the latter part of the 8th century.
According to seyeral stanzas in the prologue, the play was
composed by a king Śūdraka, who is there stated to have, through Śiva's ​favour, recovered his eyesight, and, after seeing his son as king, to
have died at the ripe age of a hundred years and ten days. According
Śūdraka.
to the same stanzas, the piece was enacted after the
king's death; but it is probable that they were added for
a subsequent performance. In Bāṇa's novel Kādambarī (c.A.D. 630),
a king Sūdraka is represented as having resided at Biḍiśā (Bhilsa)—some
130 m. east of Ujjayinī (Ujjain), where the scene of the play
is laid. Chārudatta, a Brāhman merchant, reduced to poverty, and
Vasantasenā, an accomplished courtezan, meet and fall in love with
each other. This forms the main plot, which is interwoven with a
political underplot, resulting in a change of dynasty. The
connexion between the two plots is effected by means of the king's
rascally brother-in-law, who pursues Vasantasenā with his addresses,
as well as by the part of the rebellious cowherd Āryaka, who, having
escaped from prison, finds shelter in the hero's house. The wicked
prince, on being rejected, strangles Vasantasenā, and accuses
Chārudatta of having murdered her; but, just as the latter is
about to be executed, his lady love appears again on the scene.
Meanwhile Āryaka has succeeded in deposing the king, and, having
himself mounted the throne of Ujjain, he raises Vasantasenā to the
position of an honest woman, to enable her to become the wife of
Chārudatta. The play is one of the longest, consisting of not less
than ten acts, some of which, however, are very short. The interest
of the action is, on the whole, well sustained; and, altogether, the
piece presents a vivid picture of the social manners of the time,
whilst the author shows himself imbued with a keen sense of humour,
and a master in the delineation of character.

In Kālidāsa the dramatic art attained its highest point of perfection.
From this accomplished poet we have three well-constructed
Kālidāsa.
plays, abounding in stanzas of exquisite tenderness and fine
descriptive passages, viz. the two well-known
mythopastoral dramas, Śakuntalā in seven and Vikramorvaśī[103] in five acts,
and a piece of court intrigue, distinctly inferior to the other' two,
entitled Mālavikāgnimitra[104] in five acts. King Agnimitra, who
has two wives, falls in love with Mālavikā, maid to the first queen.
His wives endeavour to frustrate their affection for each other, but
in the end Mālavikā turns out to be a princess by birth, and is
accepted by the queens as their sister.

Śri-Harshadeva—identical with the king (Śīlāditya) Harshavardhana
of Kānyakubja (Kanauj) mentioned above, who ruled in the first
Śri-Harshadeva.
half of the 7th century—has three plays attributed to him;
though possibly only dedicated to him by poets patronized
by him. This at least commentators state to have been the
case as regards the Ratnāvalī, the authorship of which they assign to
Bāṇa. Indeed, had they been the king's own productions, one might
have expected the Chinese pilgrims (especially I-tsing, who .saw one of
the plays performed) to mention the fact. The Ratnāvalī,[105] “the pearl
necklace,” is a graceful comedy of genteel domestic manners, in four
acts, of no great originality of invention; the author having been
largely indebted to Kālidāsa's plays. A decided merit of the poet's
art is the simplicity and clearness of his style. Ratnāvalī, a Ceylon
princess, is sent by her father to the court of King Udayana of
Vatsa to become his second wife. She suffers shipwreck, but is
rescued and received into Udayana's palace under the name of
Sāgarikā, as one of Queen Vāsavadattā's attendants. The king falls
in love with her, and the queen tries to keep them apart from each
other but, on learning the maiden's origin, she becomes reconciled,
and recognizes her as a “sister.” According to H. H. Wilson, “the
manners depictured are not influenced by lofty principle or
profound reflection, but they are mild, affectionate and elegant. It
may be doubted whether the harems of other eastern nations, either
in ancient or modern times, would afford materials for as favourable
a delineation.” Very similar in construction, but distinctly inferior,
is the Priyadarśikā, in four acts, having for its plot another
amour of the same king. The scene of the third play, the Nāgānanda,[106]
or “joy of the serpents” (in five acts), on the other hand, is laid in
semi-divine regions. Jīmūtavāhana, a prince of the Vidyādharas,
imbued with Buddhist principles, weds Malayavatī, daughter of the
king of the Siddhas, a votary of Gaurī (Śiva's wife). But, learning
that Garuḍa, the mythic bird, is in the habit of consuming one snake
daily, he resolves to offer himself to the bird as a victim, and finally
succeeds in converting Garuḍa to they principle of ahiṃsā, or
abstention from doing injury to living beings; but he himself is about
to succumb from the wounds he has received, when, through the
timely intervention of the goddess Gaurī, he is restored to his
former condition. The piece seems to have been intended as a
compromise between Brāhmanical (Śaiva) and Buddhist doctrines,
being thus in keeping with the religious views of king Harsha,
who, as we know from Hiuen Thsang, favoured Buddhism, but was
very tolerant to Brāhmans. It begins with a benedictory stanza
to Buddha, and concludes with one to Gaurī. The author is generally
believed to have been a Buddhist, but it is more likely that he was
a Śaiva Brāhman, possibly Bāṇa himself. Nay, one might almost
feel inclined to take the hero's self-sacrifice in favour of a Nāga as
a travesty of Buddhist principles. In spite of its shortcomings of
construction the Nāgānanda is a play of considerable merit, the
characters being drawn with a sure hand, and the humorous element
introduced into it of a very respectable order.

Bhavabhūti, surnamed Śrī-kaṇtha, “he in whose throat there is
beauty (eloquence),”[107] was a native of Padmapura in the Vidarbha
Bhavabhūti.
country (the Berars), being the son of the Brāhman
Nīlakaṇtha and his wife Jātūkarṇī. He passed his
literary life chiefly at the court of Yaśovarman of Kanauj,
who must have reigned in the latter part of the 7th century, seeing
that, after a successful reign, he suffered defeat at the hands of
Lalāditya of Kashmir, who had mounted his throne in A.D. 695.
Bhavabhūti was the author of three plays, two of which, the
Mahāvīracharita[108] (“life of the great hero”) and the Uttararāmacharita[109]
(“later life of Rāma”), in seven acts each, form together a dramatized
version of the story of the Rāmāyaṇa. The third, the
Mālatīmādhava,[110] is a domestic drama in ten acts, representing the fortunes
of Mādhava and Mālatī, the son and daughter of two ministers of
neighbouring kings, who from childhood have been destined for each
other, but, by the resolution of the maiden's royal master to marry
her to an old and ugly favourite of his, are for a while threatened
with permanent separation. The action of the play is full of life,
and abounds in stirring, though sometimes improbable, incidents.
The poet is considered by native critics to be not only not inferior
to Kālidāsa, but even to have surpassed him in his Uttararāmacharita,
which certainly contains many fine poetic passages instinct
with pathos and genuine feeling. But, though he ranks deservedly
high as a lyric poet, he is far inferior to Kālidāsa as a dramatic
artist. Whilst the latter delights in depicting the gentler feelings
and tender emotions of the human heart and the peaceful scenes of
rural life, the younger poet finds a peculiar attraction in the sterner
and more imposing aspects of nature and the human character.
Bhavabhūti's language, though polished and felicitous, is elaborate
and artificial compared with that of Kālidāsa, and his genius is
sorely shackled by a slavish adherence to the arbitrary rules of
dramatic theorists.

Bhaṭṭa Nārāyaṇa, surnamed Mṛigarāja or Siṃha, “the lion,”
the author of the Veṇīsaṃhāra[111] (“the binding up of the braid of
Bhaṭṭa Nārāyaṇa.
hair”), is a poet of uncertain date. Tradition makes
him one of the five Kanauj Brāhmans whom king Ādisūra
of Bengal, desirous of establishing the pure Vaishṇava
doctrine, invited to his court, and from whom the modern
Bengalī Brāhmans are supposed to be descended. But be this as it
may, a copperplate grant was issued to our poet in A.D. 840; and,
besides, he is quoted in Ānandavardhana's Dhvanyāloka, written
in the latter part of the 9th century. The play, consisting of six
acts, takes its title from an incident in the story of the Mahābharāta
when Draupadī, having been lost at dice by Yudhishṭhira, has her
braid of hair unloosened, and is dragged by the hair before the
assembly by one of the Kauravas; this insult being subsequently
avenged by Bhīma slaying the offender, whereupon Draupādī's
braid is tied up again, as beseems a married woman. The piece is
composed in a style similar to that of Bhavabhūti's plays, but is
inferior to them in dramatic construction and poetic merit, though
valued by critics for its strict adherence to the rules of the dramatic
theory.

The Hanuman-nāṭaka[112] is a dramatized version of the story of
Rāma, interspersed with numerous purely descriptive poetic passages.
It consists of fourteen acts, and on account of its length is also called
the Mahā-nāṭaka, or great drama. Contrary to the general practice,
it has no prologue, and Sanskrit alone is employed in it. Tradition
relates that it was composed by Hanumān, the monkey general, and
inscribed on rocks; but, Vālmīki, the author of the Rāmāyaṇa, ​being afraid lest it might throw his own poem into the shade, Hanumān
allowed him to cast his verses into the sea. Thence
fragments were ultimately picked up by a merchant, and brought to
King Bhoja, who directed the poet Dāmodara Miśra to put them
together and fill up the lacunae; whence the present composition
originated. Whatever particle of truth there may be in this story,
the “great drama” seems certainly to be the production of different
hands. “The language,” as Wilson remarks, “is in general very
harmonious, but the work is after all a most disjointed and nondescript
composition, and the patchwork is very glaringly and
clumsily put together.” It is nevertheless a work of some interest,
as compositions of mixed dramatic and declamatory passages of this
kind may have been common in the early stages of the dramatic
art. The connexion of the poet with King Bhoja, also confirmed
by the Bhoja-prabandha, would bring the composition, or final
redaction, down to about the 10th or 11th century. A Mahānāṭaka
is, however, already referred to by Ānandavardhana (9th century);
and, besides, there are two different recensions of the work, a shorter
one commented upon by Mohanadāsa, and a longer one arranged by
Madhusūdana. A Dāmodara Gupta is mentioned as having lived
under Jayāpīḍa of Kashmir (755-786); but this can scarcely be the
same as the writer connected with this work.

The Mudrārākshasa,[113] or “Rākshasa (the minister) with the
signet,” is a drama of political intrigue, in seven acts, partly based
on historical events, the plot turning on the reconciliation of
Rākshasa, the minister of the murdered king Nanda, with the hostile
party, consisting of Prince Chandragupta (the Greek Sandrocottus,
315-291 B.C.), who succeeded Nanda, and his minister Chāṇakya.
The plot is developed with considerable dramatic skill, in vigorous,
if not particularly elegant, language. The play was composed by
Viśākhadatta, prior, at any rate, to the 11th century, whilst Professor
Jacobi infers from astronomical indications that it was written in
A.D. 860.

The Prabodha-chandrodaya,[114] or “the moon-rise of intelligence,”
composed by Kṛishṇamiśra about the 12th century, is an allegorical
play, in six acts, the dramatis personae of which consist entirely of
abstract ideas, divided into two conflicting hosts.

Of numerous inferior dramatic compositions we may mention as
the best—the Anarghya-rāghava, by Murāri; the Bāla-rāmāyaṇa,
one of six plays (four of which are known) by Rājaśekhara,[115] and
the Prasanna-rāghava,[116] by Jayadeva, the author of the rhetorical
treatise Chandrāloka. Abstracts of a number of other pieces are
given in H. H. Wilson's Hindu Theatre, the standard work on this
subject. The dramatic genius of the Hindus may be said to have
exhausted itself about the 14th century.

5. Lyrical, Descriptive and Didactic Poetry.—Allusion has
already been made to the marked predilection of the medieval
Indian poet for depicting in a single stanza some
peculiar physical or mental situation. The profane
lyrical poetry consists chiefly of such little poetic
pictures, which form a prominent feature of dramatic compositions.
Numerous poets and poetesses are only known to us
through such detached stanzas, preserved in native anthologies
or manuals of rhetoric, and enshrining a vast amount of descriptive
and contemplative poetry. Thus the Saduktikarṇāmṛita,[117]
or “ear-ambrosia of good sayings,” an anthology compiled by
Śrīdhara Dāsa in 1205, contains verses by 446 different writers;
while the Śārngadharapaddhati,[118] of the 14th century, contains
some 6000 verses culled from 264 different writers and works;
and Vallabhadeva's Subhāshitāvalī,[119] another such anthology,
consists of some 3500 verses ascribed to some 350 poets. These
verses are either of a purely descriptive or of an erotic character;
or they have a didactic tendency, being intended to convey, in an
attractive and easily remembered form, some moral truth or
useful counsel. An excellent specimen of a longer poem, of a
partly descriptive, partly erotic character, is Kālidāsa's
Meghadūta,[120] or “cloud messenger,” in which a banished Yaksha
(demi-god) sends a love-message across India to his wife in the
Himālaya, and describes, in verse-pictures of the stately
mandākrāntā metre the various places and objects over which the
messenger, a cloud, will have to sail in his airy voyage. This
little masterpiece has called forth a number of more or less
successful imitations, such as Lakshmīdāsa's Śuka-sandeśa, or
“parrot-message,” lately edited by the mahārāja of Travancore.
Another much-admired descriptive poem by Kālidāsa is the
Ṛitu-saṃhāra,[121] or “collection of the seasons,” in which the
attractive features of the six seasons are successively set forth.

As regards religious lyrics, the fruit of sectarian fervour, a
large collection of hymns and detached stanzas, extolling some
special deity, might be made from Purāṇas and other works.
Of independent productions of this kind only a few of the more
important can be mentioned here. Śankara Âchārya, the great
Vedāntist, who seems to have flourished about A.D. 800, is credited
with several devotional poems, especially the Ānanda-laharī,
or “wave of joy,” a hymn of 103 stanzas, in praise of the goddess
Pārvatī. The Sūrya-śataka, or century of stanzas in praise of
Sūrya, the sun, is ascribed to Mayūra, the contemporary (and,
according to a tradition, the father-in-law) of Bāṇa (in the
early part of the 7th century). The latter poet himself composed
the Chaṇḍikāstotra, a hymn of 102 stanzas, extolling Śiva's
consort. The Khaṇḍapraśasti, a poem celebrating the ten
avatāras of Vishṇu, is ascribed to no other than Hanumān, the
monkey general, himself. Jayadeva's beautiful poem Gītagovinda,
which, like most productions concerning Kṛishṇa, is of a
very sensuous character, has already been referred to.

The particular branch of didactic poetry in which India is
especially rich is that of moral maxims, expressed in single
Didactic poetry.
stanzas or couplets, and forming the chief vehicle of
the Nīti-śāstra or ethic science. Excellent collections
of such aphorisms have been published—in Sanskrit
and German by O. v. Böhtlingk, and in English by John Muir.
Probably the oldest original collection of this kind is that ascribed
to Chāṇakya,—and entitled Rājanītisamuchchaya,[122] “collection
on the conduct of kings”—traditionally connected with the
Machiavellian minister of Chandragupta, but (in its present form)
doubtless much later—of which there are several recensions,
especially a shorter one of one hundred couplets, and a larger one
of some three hundred. Another old collection is the
Kāmandakīya-Nītisāra,[123]
ascribed to Kāmandaki, who is said to have
been the disciple of Chāṇakya. Under the name of Bhartṛihari
have been handed down three centuries of sententious couplets,[124]
one of which, the nīta-śataka, relates to ethics, whilst the other
two, the śṛingāra- and vairāgya-śatakas, consist of amatory and
devotional verses respectively. The Nīti-pradīpa, or “lamp of
conduct,” consisting of sixteen stanzas, is ascribed to Vetālabhaṭṭa
who is mentioned as one of “nine gems.” The
Amarū-śataka,[125] consisting of a hundred stanzas, ascribed to a King
Amaru (sometimes wrongly to Śankara); the Bhāminī-vilāsa,[126]
or “dalliance of a fair woman,” by Jagannātha; and the
Chaurasuratapanchāśikā,[127] by Bilhaṇa (11th century), are of an entirely
erotic character.

6. Fables and Narratives.—For purposes of popular instruction
stanzas of an ethical import were early worked up with existing
Fables and narratives.
prose fables and popular stories, probably in imitation
of the Buddhist jātakas, or birth-stories. A collection
of this kind, intended as a manual for the guidance of
princes (in usum delphini), was translated into Pahlavī
in the reign of the Persian king Chosru Nushirvan, A.D. 531-579; ​but neither this translation nor the original is any longer extant.
A Syriac translation, however, made from the Pahlavī in the
same century, under the title of “Qualilag and Dimnag”—from
the Sanskrit “Karataka and Damanaka,” two jackals who
play an important part as the lion's counsellors—has been
discovered and published. The Sanskrit original, which probably
consisted of fourteen chapters, was afterwards recast—the
result being the Panchatantra,[128] or “five books” (or headings),
of which several recensions exist. A popular summary of this
work, in four books, the Hitopadeśa,[129] or “Salutary Counsel,”
has been shown by Peterson to have been composed by one
Nārāyaṇa. Other highly popular collections of stories and fairy
tales, interspersed with sententious verses, are: the
Vetālapanchaviṃśati,[130]
or “twenty-five (stories) of the Vetāla, (the
original of the Baitāl Pachīsī), ascribed either to Jambhala
Datta, or to Śivadāsa (while Professor Weber suggests that
Vetāla-bhaṭṭa may have been the author), and at all events
older than the 11th century, since both Kshemendra and Somadeva
have used it; the Śuka-saptati,[131] or “seventy (stories
related) by the parrot,” the author and age of which are
unknown; and the Siṃhāsana-dvātriṃśikā,[132] or “thirty-two (tales)
of the throne,” being laudatory stories regarding Vikramāditya
of Avantī, related by thirty-two statues, standing round the
old throne of that famous monarch, to King Bhoja of Dhārā to
discourage him from sitting down on it. This work is ascribed
to Kshemankara, and was probably composed in the time of
Bhoja (who died in 1053) from older stories in the Mahārāshṭra
dialect. The original text has, however, undergone many
modifications, and is now known in several different recensions.
Of about the same date are two great-houses of fairy
tales, composed entirely in ślokas, viz. the rather wooden and
careless Bṛihat-kathā-manjarī,[133] or “great cluster of story,” by
Kshemendra, also called Kshemankara, who wrote, c. 1020-1040,
under King Ananta of Kashmir; and the far superior and truly
poetical Kathā-sarit-sāgara,[134] or “ocean of the streams of story,”
composed in some 21,500 couplets by Somadeva, early in the
12th century, for the recreation of Ananta's widow, Sūryavatī,
grandmother of King Harshadeva. Both these works are based
on an apparently lost work, viz. Guṇādhya's Bṛihat-kathā, or
“great story,” which was composed in some popular dialect,
perhaps as early as the 1st or 2nd century of our era, and which
must have rivalled the Mahābhārata in extent, seeing that it is
stated to have consisted of 100,000 ślokas (of 32 syllables each).

B. Scientific and Technical Literature

I. Law (Dharma).[135]—Among the technical treatises of the later
Vedic period, certain portions of the Kalpa-sūtras, or manuals of
Law.
ceremonial, peculiar to particular schools, were referred to
as the earliest attempts at a systematic treatment of law
subjects. These are the Dharma-sūtras, or “rules of (religious) law,”
also called Sāmayāchārika-sūtras, or “rules of conventional usage
(samaya-āchāra).” It is doubtful whether such treatises were at any
time quite as numerous as the Gṛihyasūtras, or rules of domestic or
family rites, to which they are closely allied, and of which indeed
they may originally have been an outgrowth. That the number of
those actually extant is comparatively small is, however, chiefly
due to the fact that this class of works was supplanted by another
of a more popular kind, which covered the same ground. The
Dharmasūtras consist chiefly of strings of terse rules, containing
the essentials of the science, and intended to be committed to
memory, and to be expounded orally by the teacher—thus forming,
as it were, epitomes of class lectures. These rules are interspersed
with stanzas or “gāthās,” in various metres, either composed by
the author himself or quoted from elsewhere, which generally give
the substance of the preceding rules. One can well understand
why such couplets should gradually have become more popular, and
should ultimately have led to the appearance of works entirely
composed in verse. Such metrical law-books did spring up in
large numbers, not all at once, but over a long period of time,
extending probably from about the beginning of our era, or even
earlier, down to well-nigh the Mahommedan conquest; and, as at
the time of their first appearance the epic impulse was particularly
strong, other metres were entirely discarded for the epic śloka.
These works are the metrical Dharma-śāstras, or, as they are usually
called, the Smṛiti, “recollection, tradition,”—a term which, as we
have seen, belonged to the whole body of Sūtras (as opposed to the
Śruti, or revelation), but which has become the almost exclusive
title of the versified institutes of law (and the few Dharmasūtras
still extant). Of metrical Smṛitis about forty are hitherto known to
exist, but their total number probably amounted to at least double
that figure, though some of these, it is true, are but short and
insignificant tracts, while others are only different recensions of one
and the same work.

With the exception of a few of these works—such as the Agni-,
Yama- and Vishṇu-Smṛitis—which are ascribed to the respective
Manu.
gods, the authorship of the Smṛitis is attributed to old
ṛishis, such as Atri, Kaṇva, Vyāsa, Śāṇdilya, Bharadvāja.
It is, however, extremely doubtful whether in most cases this
attribution is not altogether fanciful, or whether, as a rule, there really
existed a traditional connexion between these works and their
alleged authors or schools named after them. The idea, which early
suggested itself to Sanskrit scholars, that Smṛitis which passed by
the names of old Vedic teachers and their schools might simply be
metrical recasts of the Dharma- (or Gṛihya-) sūtras of these schools,
was a very natural one, and, indeed, is still a very probable one,
though the loss of the original Sūtras, and the modifications and
additions which the Smṛitis doubtless underwent in course of
time, make it very difficult to prove this point. One could, however,
scarcely account for the disappearance of the Dharmasūtras
of some of the most important schools except on the ground that
they were given up in favour of other works; and it is not very likely
that this should have been done, unless there was some guarantee
that the new works, upon the whole, embodied the doctrines of the
old authorities of the respective schools. Thus, as regards the most
important of the Smṛitis, the Mānava-Dharmaśāstra,[136] there exist
both a Śrauta- and a Gṛihya-sūtra of the Mānava school of the
Black Yajus, but no such Dharmasūtra has hitherto been discovered,
though the former existence of such a work has been made all but
certain by Professor Bühler's discovery of quotations from a Mānavam,
consisting partly of prose rules, and partly of couplets, some of
which occur literally in the Manusmṛiti, whilst others have been
slightly altered there to suit later doctrines, or have been changed
from the original trishṭubh into the epic metre. The idea of an
old law-giver Manu Svāyambhuva—“sprung from the self-existent
(svayam-bhū)” god Brahman (m.)—reaches far back into Vedic
antiquity: he is mentioned as such in early texts; and in Yāska's
Nirukta a śloka occurs giving his opinion on a point of inheritance.
But whether or not the Mānava-Dharmasūtra embodied what were
supposed to be the authoritative precepts of this sage on questions
of sacred law we do not know; nor can it as yet be shown that
the Manusmṛiti, which seems itself to have undergone considerable
modifications, is the lineal descendant of that Dharmasūtra. It
is, however, worthy of note that a very close connexion exists
between the Manusmṛiti and the Vishṇuśāstra; and, as the latter
is most likely a modern, only partially remodelled, edition of the
Sūtras of the Black Yajus school of the Kaṭhas, the close relation
between the two works would be easily understood, if it could be
shown that the Manusmṛiti is a modern development of the Sūtras of
another school of the Charaka division of the Black Yajurveda.

The Mānava Dharmaśāstra consists of twelve books, the first
and last of which, treating of creation, transmigration and final
beatitude, are, however, generally regarded as later additions. In
them the legendary sage Bhṛigu, here called a Mānava, is introduced
as Manu's disciple, through whom the great teacher has his work
promulgated. Why this intermediate agent should have been considered
necessary is by no means clear. Except in these two books
the work shows no special relation to Manu, for, though he is occasionally
referred to in it, the same is done in other Smṛitis. The
question as to the probable date of the final redaction of the work
cannot as yet be answered. Dr Burnell has tried to show that it
was probably composed under the Chālukya king Pulakeśi, about
A.D. 500, but his argumentation is anything but convincing. From
several ślokas quoted from Manu by Varāhamihira, in the 6th
century, it would appear that the text which the great astronomer had
before him differed very considerably from our Manusmṛiti. It is,
however, possible that he referred either to the Bṛihat-Manu (Great ​M.) or the Vṛiddha-Manu (Old M.), who are often found quoted, and
apparently represent one, if not two, larger recension's of this Smṛiti.
The oldest existing commentary on the Mānava-Dharmaśāstra is by
Medhātithi, who is first quoted in 1200, and is usually supposed
to have lived in the 9th or 10th century. He had, however, several
predecessors to whom he refers as pūrve, “the former ones.” The
most esteemed of the commentaries is that of Kullūka Bhaṭṭa,
composed at Benares in the 15th century.

Next in importance among Smṛitis ranks the YājñavalkyaDharmaśātra.[137] Its origin and date are not less uncertain—except that,
Yājñavalkya.
in the opinion of Professor Stenzler, which has never been
questioned, it is based on the Manusmṛiti, and represents a
more advanced stage of legal theory and definition than
that work. Yājñavalkya, as we have seen, is looked upon as the
founder of the Vājasaneyins or White Yajus, and the author of the
Śatapatha-brāhmaṇa. In the latter work he is represented as having
passed some time at the court of King Janaka of Videha (Tirhut);
and in accordance therewith he is stated, in the introductory couplets
of the Dharmaśāstra, to have propounded his legal doctrines to the
sages, while staying at Mithilā (the capital of Videha). Hence, if the
connexion between the metrical Smṛitis and the old Vedic schools be
a real one and not one of name merely, we should expect to find in the
Yājñavalkya-smṛiti special coincidences of doctrine with the Kātīyasūtra,
the principal Sūtra of the Vājasaneyins. Now, some sufficiently
striking coincidences between this Smṛiti and Pāraskara's
Kātiya-Gṛihyasūtra have indeed been pointed out; and if there ever existed
a Dharmasūtra belonging to the same school, of which no trace has
hitherto been found, the points of agreement between this and
the Dharmaśāstra might be expected to be even more numerous.
A connexion between this Smṛiti and the Mānava-gṛihyasūtra seems,
however, likewise evident. As in the case of Manu, ślokas are
quoted in various works from a Bṛihat- and a Vṛiddha-Yājñavalkya.
The Yājñavalkya-smṛiti consists of three books, corresponding to
the three great divisions of the Indian theory of law: āchāra,
rule of conduct (social and caste duties); vyavahāra, civil and
criminal law; and prāyaśchitta, penance or expiation. There are
two important commentaries on the work: the famous Mitāksharā,[138]
by Vijñāneśvara, who lived under the Chālukya king Vikramāditya
of Kalyāṇa (1076-1127); and another by Aparārka or Aparāditya,
a petty Sīlāra prince of the latter half of the 12th century.

The Nāradīya-Dharmaśāstra, or Nāradasmṛiti,[139] is a work of a more
practical kind; indeed, it is probably the most systematic and businesslike
Nāradasmṛiti.
of all the Smṛitis. It does not concern itself with
religious and moral precepts, but is strictly confined to law.
Of this work again there are at least two different recensions.
Besides the text translated by Dr Jolly, a portion of a larger recension
has come to light in India. This version has been commented upon
by Asahāya, “the peerless”—a very esteemed writer on law who is
supposed to have lived before Medhātithi (? 9th century)—and it
may therefore be considered as the older recension of the two. But,
as it has been found to contain the word dīnāra, an adaptation of
the Roman denarius, it cannot, at any rate, be older than the 2nd
century; indeed, its date is probably several centuries later.

The Parāśara-smṛiti[140] contains no chapter on jurisprudence, but
treats only of religious duties and expiation's in 12 adhyāyas. The
Parāśara.
deficiency was, however, supplied by the famous exegete
Mādhava (in the latter half of the 14th century), who
made use of Parāśara's text for the compilation of a large digest of
religious law, usually called Parāśara-mādhavīyam, to which he
added a third chapter on vyavahāra, or law proper. Besides the
ordinary text of the Parāśara-smṛiti, consisting of rather less than
600 couplets, there is also extant a Bṛihat-Parāśarasmṛiti, probably
an amplification of the former, containing not less than 2980 (according
to others even 3300) ślokas.

Whether any of the Dharmaśāstras were ever used In India as
actual “codes of law” for the practical administration of justice
is very doubtful; indeed, so far as the most prominent works of
this class are concerned, it is highly improbable.[141] No doubt these
works were held to be of the highest authority as laying down the
principles of religious and civil duty; but it was not so much any
single text as the whole body of the Smṛiti that was looked upon as
the embodiment of the divine law. Hence, the moment the actual
work of codification begins in the 11th century, we find the jurists
engaged in practically showing how the Smṛitis confirm and supplement
each other, and in reconciling seeming contradictions between
them. This new phase of Indian jurisprudence commences with
Vijñāneśvara's Mitāksharā, which, though primarily a commentary
on Yājñavalkya, is so rich in original matter and illustrations from
other Smṛitis that it is far more adapted to serve as a code of law
than the work it professes to explain. This treatise is held in high
esteem all over India, with the exception of the Bengal or Gaurīya
school of law, which recognizes as its chief authority the digest of
its founder, Jīmūtavāhana, especially the chapter on succession,
entitled Dāyabhāga.[142] Based on the Mitāksharā are the
Smṛitichandrikā,[143] a work of great common-sense, written by Devāṇḍa
Bhaṭṭa, in the 13th century, and highly esteemed in Southern
India; and the Vīramitrodaya, a compilation consisting of two
chapters, on āchāra and vyavahāra, made in the first half of the
17th century by Mitramiśra, for Rājā Vīrasiṃha, or Bīrsinh Deo of
Orchhā, who murdered Abul Fazl, the minister of the emperor
Akbar, and author of the Āīn i Akbarī. There is no need here to
enumerate any more of the vast number of treatises on special
points of law, of greater or less merit, the more important of which
will be found mentioned in English digests of Hindu law.

II. Philosophy.[144]—The contemplative Indian mind shows at all
times a strong disposition for metaphysical speculation. In the old
religious lyrics this may be detected from the very first. Not to
speak of the abstract nature of some even of the oldest Vedic deities,
this propensity betrays itself in a certain mystic symbolism, tending
to refine and spiritualize the original purely physical character and
activity of some of the more prominent gods, and to impart a deep
and subtle import to the rites of the sacrifice. The primitive worship
of more or less isolated elemental forces and phenomena had evidently
ceased to satisfy the religious wants of the more thoughtful minds.
Various syncretist tendencies show the drift of religious thought
towards some kind of unity of the divine powers, be it in the
direction of the pantheistic idea, or in that of an organized
polytheism, or even towards monotheism. In the latter age of the
hymns the pantheistic idea is rapidly gaining ground, and finds vent
in various cosmogonic speculations; and in the Brāhmaṇa period
we see it fully developed. The fundamental conception of this
doctrine finds its expression in the two synonymous terms brahman
(neutr.), probably originally “mystic effusion, devotional utterance,”[145]
then “holy impulse,” and ātman[146] (masc.), “breath, self, soul.”

The recognition of the essential sameness of the individual souls,
emanating all alike (whether really or imaginarily) from the ultimate
spiritual essence (parama-brahman) “as sparks issue from the fire,”
and destined to return thither, involved some important problems.
Considering the infinite diversity of individual souls of the animal
and vegetable world, exhibiting various degrees of perfection, is it
conceivable that each of them is the immediate efflux of the Supreme
Being, the All-perfect, and that each, from the lowest to the highest,
could re-unite therewith directly at the close of its mundane existence?
The difficulty implied in the latter question was at first
met by the assumption of an intermediate state of expiation and
purification, a kind of purgatory; but the whole problem found at
last a more comprehensive solution in the doctrine of transmigration
(saṃsāra). Some scholars have suggested[147] that metempsychosis
may have been the prevalent belief among the aboriginal tribes of
India, and may have been taken over from them by the
Indo-Aryans. This, no doubt, is possible; but in the absence of any
positive proof it would be idle to speculate on its probability; the
more so as the pantheistic notion of a universal spiritual essence
would probably of itself sufficiently account for the spontaneous
growth of such a belief. In any case, however, we can only assume
that speculative minds seized upon it as offering the most satisfactory
(if not the only possible) explanation of the great problem of phenomenal
existence with its unequal distribution of weal and woe. It
is certainly a significant fact that, once established in Indian thought,
the doctrine of metempsychosis is never again called in question—that,
like the fundamental idea on which it rests, viz. the essential
sameness of the immaterial element of all sentient beings, the notion
of saṃsāra has become an axiom, a universally conceded principle
of Indian philosophy. Thus the latter has never quite risen to the
heights of pure thought; its object is indeed jijñāsā, the search for
knowledge; but it is an inquiry (mīmāṃsā) into the nature of things
undertaken not solely for the attainment of the truth, but with a
view to a specific object—the discontinuance of saṃsāra, the
cessation of mundane existence after the present life. Every sentient
being, through ignorance, being liable to sin, and destined after each
existence to be born again in some new form, dependent on the
actions committed during the immediately preceding life, all mundane
existence thus is the source of ever-renewed suffering; and the
task of the philosopher is to discover the means of attaining moksha,
“release” from the bondage of material existence, and union with
the Supreme Self—in fact, salvation. It is with a view to this, ​and to this only, that the Indian metaphysician takes up the great
problems of life—the origin of man and the universe, and the
relation between mind and matter.

It is not likely that these speculations were viewed with much
favour by the great body of Brāhmans engaged in ritualistic
practices. Not that the metaphysicians actually discountenanced
the ceremonial worship of the old mythological gods as vain and
nugatory. On the contrary, they expressly admitted the propriety
of sacrifices, and commended them as the most meritorious of
human acts, by which man could raise himself to the highest degrees
of mundane existence, to the worlds of the Fathers and Devas.
But, on the other hand, metaphysical speculation itself had gradually
succeeded in profoundly modifying the original character of the
sacrificial ritual: an allegorical meaning had come to be attached
to every item of the ceremonial, in accordance with the strange
monotheistic-pantheistic theory of the Brāhmaṇas which makes
the performance of the sacrifice represent the building up of Prajāpati,
the Purusha or “world man,” and thus the creation of reproduction
of the universe. In the Śatap. Br. (vii. 3, 4, 41) he is said
to be the whole Brahman (n.), and (vii. 1, 2, 7; xi. 1, 6, 17) he is
represented as the breath or vital air (prāṇa), and the air being his
self (ātman). It needed but the identification of the Ātman, or
individual self, with the Brahman or Paramātman (supreme self),
to show that the final goal lay far beyond the worlds hitherto striven
after through sacrifice, a goal unattainable through aught but a
perfect knowledge of the soul's nature and its identity with the
Divine Spirit. “Know ye that one Self,” exhorts one of those old
idealists,[148] “and have done with other words; for that (knowledge)
is the bridge to immortality!” Intense self-contemplation being,
moreover, the only way of attaining the all-important knowledge,
this doctrine left little or no room for those mediatorial offices of
the priest, so indispensable in ceremonial worship; and indeed
we actually read of Brāhman sages resorting to Kshatriya princes[149]
to hear them expound the true doctrine of salvation. But, in spite
of their anti-hierarchical tendency, these speculations continued to
gain ground; and in the end the body of treatises propounding the
pantheistic doctrine, the Upanishads, were admitted into the sacred
canon, as appendages to the ceremonial writings, the Brāhmaṇas.
The Upanishads[150] thus form literally “the end of the Veda,” the
Vedānta; but their adherents claim this title for their doctrines in a
metaphorical rather than in a material sense, as “the ultimate aim
and consummation of the Veda.” In later times the radical distinction
between these speculative appendages and the bulk of the
Vedic writings was strongly accentuated in a new classification of
the sacred scriptures. According to this scheme they were supposed
to consist of two great divisions—the Karma-kāṇḍa, i.e. “the
work-section,” or practical ceremonial (exoteric) part, consisting of the
Saṃhitās and Brāhmaṇas (including the ritual portions of the
Āraṇyakas), and the Jñānakāṇḍa, “the knowledge-section,” or
speculative (esoteric) part. These two divisions are also called
respectively the Pūrva- (“former”) and Uttara- (“latter,” or higher[151])
kāṇḍa; and when the speculative tenets of the Upanishads came to
be formulated into a regular system it was deemed desirable that
there should also be a special system corresponding to the older and
larger portion of the Vedic writings. Thus arose the two systems—the
Pūrva- (or Karma-) mīmāṃsā, or “prior (practical) speculation,”
and the Uttara- (or Brahma-) mīmāmsā, or higher inquiry (into the
nature of the godhead), usually called the Vedānta philosophy.

It is not yet possible to determine, even approximately, the
time when the so-called Darśanas (literally “demonstrations”),
Philosophical systems.
or systems of philosophy which subsequently arose,
were first formulated. And, though they have certainly
developed from the tenets enunciated in the Upanishads,
there is some doubt as to the exact order in
which these systems succeeded each other. Of all the systems the
Vedānta has indeed remained most closely in touch with the
speculations of the Upanishads, which it has further developed and
systematized. The authoritative exposés of the systems have,
however, apparently passed through several redactions; and, in
their present form, these sūtra-works[152] evidently belong to a
comparatively
recent period, none of them being probably older than the
early centuries of our era. By far the ablest general review of the
philosophical systems (except the Vedānta) produced by a native
scholar is the Sarva-darśana-sangraha[153] (“summary of all the
Darśanas”), composed in the 14th century, from a Vedāntist point of
view, by the great exegete Mādhava Āchārya.

Among the different systems, six are generally recognized as
orthodox, as being (either wholly or for the most part) consistent
with the Vedic religion—two and two of which are again more
closely related to each other than to the rest, viz.:

(1) Pūrva-mīmāṃsā (Mīmāṃsā), and (2) Uttara-mīmāṃsā (Vedānta);

(3) Sānkhya, and (4) Yoga;

(5) Nyāya, and (6) Vaiśeshika.

1. The (Pūrva-) Mīmāṃsā is not a system of philosophy in the
proper sense of the word, but rather a system of dogmatic criticism
Mīmāṃsā.
and scriptural interpretation. It maintains the eternal
existence of the Veda, the different parts of which
are minutely classified. Its principal object, however, is to
ascertain the religious (chiefly ceremonial), duties enjoined in the
Veda, and to show how these duties must be performed, and what
are the special merits and rewards attaching to them. Hence
arises the necessity of determining the principles for rightly interpreting
the Vedic texts, as also of what forms its only claim to being
classed among speculative systems, viz. a philosophical examination
of the means of, and the proper method for, arriving at accurate
knowledge. The foundation of this school, as well as the composition
of the Sūtras or aphorisms, the Mīmāṃsā-darśana,[154] which constitute
its chief doctrinal authority, is ascribed to Jaimini. The Sūtras
were commented on by Śabara Svāmin; and further annotations
(vārttika) thereon were supplied by the great theologian Kumārila
Bhaṭṭa, who is supposed to have lived about A.D. 700 and to have
worked hard for the re-establishment of Brāhmanism. The most
approved general introduction to the study of the Mīmāṃsā is the
metrical Jaiminīya-Nyāya-mālā-vistara,[155] with a prose commentary,
both by Mādhava Āchārya. This distinguished writer, who has
already been mentioned several times, was formerly supposed,
from frequent statements in MSS., to have been the brother of
Sāyaṇa, the well-known interpreter of the Vedas. The late Dr
Burnell[156] has, however, made it very probable that these two are
one and the same person, Sāyaṇa being his Telugu and Mādhavāchārya
his Brāhmanical name. In 1331 he became the jagadguru,
or spiritual head, of the Smārtas (a Vedāntist sect founded by
Śankarāchārya) at the Math of Śṛingeri, where, under the patronage
of Bukka, king of Vidyānagara, he composed his numerous works.
He sometimes passes under a third name, Vidyāraṇya,-svāmin,
adopted by him on becoming a sannyāsin, or religious mendicant.

2. The Vedānta philosophy, in the comparatively primitive
form in which it presents itself in most of the older Upanishads,
Vedānta.
constitutes the earliest phase of sustained metaphysical
speculation. In its essential features it remains to this
day the prevalent belief of Indian thinkers, and enters largely into
the religious life and convictions of the people. It is an idealistic
monism, which derives the universe from an ultimate conscious
spiritual principle, the one and only existent from eternity—the
Ātman, the Self, or the Purusha, the Person, the Brahman. It is this
primordial essence or Self that pervades all things, and gives life and
light to them, “without being sullied by the visible outward
impurities or the miseries of the world, being itself apart”—and into
which all things will, through knowledge, ultimately resolve
themselves. “The wise who perceive him as being within their own Self,
to them belongs eternal peace, not to others.”[157] But, while the
commentators never hesitate to interpret the Upanishads as being in
perfect agreement with the Vedāntic system, as elaborated in later
times, there is often considerable difficulty in accepting their
explanations. In these treatises only the leading features of the
pantheistic theory find utterance, generally in vague and mystic,
though often in singularly powerful and poetical language, from
which it is not always possible to extract the author's real idea on
fundamental points, such as the relation between the Supreme
Spirit and the phenomenal world—whether the latter was actually
evolved from the former by a power inherent in him, or whether
the process is altogether a fiction, an illusion of the individual
self. Thus the Kaṭha-upanishad[158] offers the following summary:
“Beyond the senses [there are the objects; beyond the objects]
there is the mind (manas); beyond the mind there is the intellect
(buddhi); beyond the intellect there is the Great Self. Beyond
the Great One there is the Highest Undeveloped (avyaktam); beyond ​the Undeveloped there is the Person (purusha), the all-pervading,
characterless (alinga). Whatsoever knows him is liberated, and
attains immortality.” Here the Vedāntist commentator assures
us that the Great Undeveloped, which the Sānkhyas would claim
as their own primary material principle (pradhāna, prakṛiti), is in
reality Māyā, illusion (otherwise called Avidyā, ignorance, or Śakti,
power), the fictitious energy which in conjunction with the Highest Self
(Ātman, Purusha) produces or constitutes the Īśvara, the Lord,
or Cosmic Soul, the first emanation of the Ātman, and himself the
(fictitious) cause of all that seems to exist. It must remain doubtful,
however, whether the author of the Upanishad really meant this,
or whether he regarded the Great Undeveloped as an actual material
principle or substratum evolved from out of the Purusha, though not,
as the Sānkhyas hold, coexisting with him from eternity. Besides
passages such as these which seem to indicate realistic or materialistic
tendencies of thought, which may well have developed into the
dualistic Sānkhya and kindred systems, there are others which indicate
the existence even of nihilist theories, such as the Bauddhas—the
śūnya-vādins, or affirmers of a void or primordial nothingness—profess.
Thus we read in the Chhāndogya-upanishad:[159] “The
existent alone, my son, was here in the beginning, one only, without
a second. Others say, there was the non-existent alone here in the
beginning, one only, without a second—and from the non-existent
the existent was born. But how could this be, my son? How could
the existent be born from the non-existent? No, my son, only the
existent was here in the beginning, one only, without a second.”

The foundation of the Vedānta system, as “the completion of the
Veda,” is naturally ascribed to Vyāsa, the mythic arranger of the
Vedas, who is said to be identical with Bādarāyaṇa the reputed
author of the Brahma- (or Śārīraka-) sūtra, the authoritative, though
highly obscure, summary of the system. The most distinguished
interpreter of these aphorisms is the famous Malabar theologian
Śankara.
Śankara Āchārya,[160] who also commented on the principal
Upanishads and the Bhagavadgītā, and is said to have
spent the greater part of his life in wandering all over India,
as far as Kashmir, and engaging in disputations with teachers—whether
of the Śaiva, or Vaishṇava, or less orthodox persuasions—with
the view of rooting out heresy and re-establishing
the doctrine of the Upanishads. His controversial triumphs
(doubtless largely mythical) are related in a number of treatises
current, in South India, the two most important of which
are the Śankara-dig-vijaya (“Śankara's world-conquest”), ascribed
to his own disciple Ānandagiri, and the Śankara-vijaya, by
Mādhavāchārya. In Śankara's philosophy[161] the theory that the
material world has no real existence, but is a mere illusion of the
individual soul wrapt in ignorance,—that, therefore, it has only a
practical or conventional (vyāvahārika) but not a transcendental or
true (pāramārthika) reality,—is strictly enforced. In accordance
with this distinction, a higher (parā) and a lower (aparā) form of
knowledge is recognized; the former being concerned with the
Brahman (n.), whilst the latter deals with the personal Brahmā, the
Īśvara, or lord and creator, who, however, is a mere illusory form
of the divine spirit, resulting from ignorance of the human soul.
To the question why the Supreme Self (or rather his fictitious
development, the Highest Lord) should have sent forth this phantasmagory
this great thinker (with the author of the Sūtras[162]) can return
no better answer than that it must have been done for sport (līlā),
without any special motive—since to ascribe such a motive to the
Supreme Lord would be limiting his self-sufficiency—and that the
process of creation has been going on from all eternity. Śankara's
Sārīraka-mīmāṃsā-bhāshya[163] has given rise to a large number of
exegetic treatises, of which Vāchaspati-miśra's[164] exposition, entitled
Bhāmatī,[165] is the most esteemed. Of numerous other commentaries
Rāmānuja.
on the Brahma-sūtras, the Śrī-bhāshya, by Rāmānuja,
the founder of the Śri-Vaishṇava sect, is the most noteworthy.
This religious teacher, who flourished in the first half of
the 12th century, caused a schism in the Vedānta school. Instead
of adhering to Śankara's orthodox advaita, or non-duality, doctrine,
he interpreted the obscure Sūtras in accordance with his theory of
viśishṭādvaita, i.e. non-duality of the (two) distinct (principles), or,
as it is more commonly explained, non-duality of that which is
qualified (by attributes). According to this theory the Brahman is
neither devoid of form and quality, nor is it all things; but it is
endowed with all good qualities, and matter is distinct from it;
whilst bodies consist of souls (chit) and matter (achit); and God is
the soul. On the religious side, Rāmānuja adopts the tenets of
the ancient Vishnuite Pāncharātra sect, and, identifying the Brahman
with Vishṇu, combines with his theory the ordinary Vaishṇava
doctrine of periodical descents (avatāra) of the deity, in various
forms, for the benefit of creatures; and allowing considerable play
to the doctrine that faith (bhakti), not knowledge (vidyā), is the
means of final emancipation. This phase of Indian religious belief,
which has attached itself to the Vedānta theory more closely than
to any other, makes its appearance very prominently in the
Bhagavadgītā, the episode of the Mahābhārata, already referred
to—where, however, it attaches itself to Sānkhya-yoga rather than to
Vedānta tenets—and is even more fully developed in some of the
Purāṇas, especially the Bhāgavata. Some scholars would attribute
this doctrine of fervid devotion to Christian influence, but it is
already alluded to by Pāṇini and in the Mahābhāshya. In the
Śāṇḍilya- (Bhakti-) sūtra,[166] the author and date of which are unknown,
the doctrine is systematically propounded in one hundred aphorisms.
According to this doctrine mundane existence is due to want of
faith, not to ignorance; and the final liberation of the individual
soul can only be effected by faith. Knowledge only contributes to
this end by removing the mind's foulness, unbelief. Its highest phase
of development this doctrine probably reached in the Vaishṇava sect
founded, towards the end of the 15th century, by Chaitanya, whose
followers subsequently grafted the Vedānta speculations on his
doctrine. In opposition both to Śankara's theory of absolute unity,
and to Rāmānuja's doctrine of qualified unity—though leaning
more towards the latter—Madhva Āchārya, or Pūrṇaprajna (A.D.
1118-1198), started his dvaita, or duality doctrine, according to
which there is a difference between God and the human soul (jīva),
as well as between God and nature; whilst the individual souls,
which are innumerable, eternal, and indestructible, are likewise
different from one another; but, though distinct, are yet united
with God, like tree and sap, in an indissoluble union. This doctrine
also identifies the Brahman with Vishṇu, by the side of whom,
likewise infinite, is the goddess Lakshmī, as Prakṛiti (nature), from
whom inert matter (jaḍa) derives its energy. Here also bhakti,
devotion to God, is the saving element. A popular summary of
the Vedānta doctrine is the Vedānta-sāra by Sadānanda, which has
been frequently printed and translated.[167]

3. The Sānkhya[168] system seems to derive its name from its
systematic enumeration (sankhyā) of the twenty-five principles (tattva)
Sānkhya.
it recognizes—consisting of twenty-four material and an
independent immaterial principle. In opposition to the
Vedānta school, which maintains the eternal coexistence of a spiritual
principle of reality and an unspiritual principle of unreality, the
Sānkhya assumes the eternal coexistence of a material first cause,
which it calls either mūla-Pṛakriti (fem.), “prime Originant” (Nature),
or Pradhāna, “the principal” cause, and a plurality of spiritual elements
or Selves, Purusha. The system recognizes no intelligent
creator (such as the Īśvara, or demiurgus, of the Vedānta)—whence
it is called nirīśvara, godless; but it conceives the Material First
Cause, itself unintelligent, to have become developed, by a gradual
process of evolution, into all the actual forms of the phenomenal
universe, excepting the souls. Its first emanation is buddhi, intelligence;
whence springs ahaṃkāra, consciousness (or “conscious
mind-matter,” Davies); thence the subtle elements of material forms,
viz. five elementary particles (tanmātra) and eleven organs of sense;
and finally, from the elementary particles, five elements. The souls
have from all eternity been connected with Nature,—having in the
first place become invested with a subtle frame (linga-, or sūkshma-,
śarīra), consisting of seventeen principles, viz. intelligence,
consciousness, elementary particles, and organs of sense and action,
including mind. To account for the spontaneous development of
matter, the system assumes the latter to consist of three constituents
(guṇa) which are possessed of different qualities, viz. sattva, of pleasing
qualities, such as “goodness,” lightness, luminosity; rajas, of
pain-giving qualities, such as “gloom,” passion, activity; and
tamas, of deadening qualities, such as “darkness,” rigidity, dullness,
and which, if not in a state of equipoise, cause unrest and development.
Through all this course of development, the soul itself
remains perfectly indifferent, its sole properties being those of
purity and intelligence, and the functions usually regarded as
“psychic” being due to the mechanical processes of the internal
organs themselves evolved out of inanimate matter. Invested with
its subtle frame, which accompanies it through the cycle of transmigration,
the soul, for the sake of fruition, connects itself ever anew
with Nature, thus, as it were, creating for itself ever new forms of
material existence; and it is only on his attaining perfect knowledge,
whereby the ever-changing modes of intelligence cease to be reflected
on him, that the Purusha is liberated from the miseries of Saṃsāra,
and continues to exist in a state of absolute unconsciousness and
detachment from matter. The existence of God, on the other hand,
is denied by this theory, or rather considered as incapable of proof;
the existence of evil and misery, for one thing, being thought
incompatible with the notion of a divine origin of the world.

The reputed originator of this school is the sage Kapila, to whom
tradition ascribes the composition of the fundamental text-book, ​the (Sānkhya-sūtra, or) Sānkhya-pravachana,[169] as well as the
Tattvasamāsa, a mere catalogue of the principles. But, though the founder
would seem to have promulgated his system, in some form or other,
at a very early period, these works, in their present form, have
been shown to be quite modern productions, going probably not
farther back than the 14th century of our era. Probably the oldest
existing work is Īśvarakṛishṇa's excellent Sānkhya-kārikā,[170] which
gives, in the narrow compass of sixty-nine ślokas, a lucid and
complete sketch of the system. Though nothing certain is known
regarding its author,[171] this work must be of tolerable antiquity,
considering that it was commented upon by Gauḍapāda,[172] the
preceptor of Govinda, who, on his part, is said to have been the
teacher of Śankarāchārya. Of the commentaries on the Sūtras, the
most approved are those of Aniruddha[173] and Vijñāna Bhikshu,[174] a
writer probably of the latter part of the 16th century, who also
wrote an independent treatise, the Sānkhya-sāra,[175] consisting of a
prose and a verse part, which is probably the most useful compendium
of Sānkhya doctrines.

4. The Yoga system is merely a schismatic branch of the preceding
school, holding the same opinions on most points treated in common
Yoga.
in their Sūtras, with the exception of one important point,
the existence of God. To the twenty-five principles
(tattva) of the Nirīśvara Sānkhya, the last of which was the Purusha,
the Yoga adds, as the twenty-sixth, the Nirguṇa Purusha, or Self
devoid of qualities, the Supreme God of the system. Hence the
Yoga is called the Seśvara (theistical) Sānkhya. But over and above
the purely speculative part of its doctrine, which it has adopted
from the sister school, the theistic Sānkhya has developed a complete
system of mortification of the senses—by means of prolonged
apathy and abstraction, protracted rigidity of posture, and similar
practices,—many of which are already alluded to in the Upanishads,—with
the view of attaining to complete concentration (yoga) on,
and an ecstatic vision of, the Deity, and the acquisition of miraculous
powers. It is from this portion of the system that the school derives
the name by which it is more generally known. The authoritative
Sūtras of the Yoga, bearing the same title as those of the sister
school, viz. Sānkhya-pravachana, but more commonly called
Yoga-śāstra, are ascribed to Patañjali, who is perhaps identical with the
author of the “great commentary” on Pāṇini. The oldest
commentary on the Sūtras, the Pātañala-bhāshya, is attributed to no
other than Vyāsa, the mythic arranger of the Veda and founder of
the Vedānta. Both works have again been commented upon by
Vāchaspati-miśra, Vijñāna-bhikshu, and other writers.

5, 6. The Nyāya[176] and Vaiśeshika are but separate branches of
one and the same school, which supplement each other and the
Nyāya and Vaiśeshika.
doctrines of which have virtually become amalgamated
into a single system of philosophy. The special part
taken by each of the two branches in the elaboration of
the system may be briefly stated in Dr Röer's words:—“To
the Nyāya belong the logical doctrines of the forms
of syllogisms, terms and repositions; to the Vaiśeshikas the
systematical explanation of the categories (the simplest
metaphysical ideas) of the metaphysical, physical and psychical notions—which
notions are hardly touched upon in the Nyāya-sūtras. They
differ in their statement of the several modes of proof—the Nyāya
asserting four modes of proof (from perception, inference, analogy
and verbal communication), the Vaiśieshikas admitting only the two
first ones.” The term Nyāya (ni-āya, “in-going,” entering), though
properly meaning “analytical investigation,” as applied to
Logic.
philosophical inquiry generally, has come to be taken more
commonly in the narrower sense of “logic,” because this
school has entered more thoroughly than any other into the laws
and processes of thought, and has worked out a formal system of
reasoning which forms the Hindu standard of logic.

The followers of these schools generally recognize seven categories
(padārtha): substance (dravya), quality (guṇa), action (karma),
generality (sāmānya), particularity (viśesha), intimate relation
(samavāya) and non-existence or negation (abhāva). Substances,
forming the substrata of qualities and actions, are, of two kinds:
eternal (without a cause), viz. space, time, ether, soul and the
atoms of mind, earth, water, fire and air; and non-eternal,
comprising all compounds, or the things we perceive, and which must
have a cause of their existence. Causality is of three kinds: that
of intimate relation (material cause); that of non-intimate relation
(between parts of a compound); and instrumental causality
(effecting
the union of component parts). Material things are thus
composed of atoms (aṇu), i.e. ultimate simple substances, or units
of space, eternal, unchangeable and without dimension, characterized
only by “particularity (viśesha).” It is from this predication
of ultimate “particulars” that the Vaiśeshikas, the originators of
the atomistic doctrine, derive their name. The Nyāya draws a
clear line between matter and spirit, and has worked out a careful
and ingenious system of psychology. It distinguishes between
individual or living souls (jīvātman), which are numerous, infinite
and eternal, and the Supreme Soul (Paramātman), which is one
only, the seat of eternal knowledge, and the maker and ruler (Īśvara)
of all things. It is by his will and agency that the unconscious
living souls (soul-atoms, in fact) enter into union with the (material)
atoms of mind, &c., and thus partake of the pleasures and sufferings
of mundane existence. On the Hindu syllogism compare Professor
Cowell's notes to Colebrooke's Essays, 2nd ed., i. p. 314.

The original collection of Nyāya-sūtras is ascribed to Gotama,
and that of the Vaiśeshika-sūtras to Kaṇāda. The etymological
meaning of the latter name seems to be “little-eater, particle-eater,”
whence in works of hostile critics the synonymous terms
Kaṇa-bhuj or Kaṇa-bhaksha are sometimes derisively applied to
him, doubtless in allusion to his theory of atoms. He is also occasionally
referred to under the name of Kāśyapa. Both sūtra-works have
been interpreted and supplemented by a number of writers, the
commentary of Viśvanātha on the Nyāya and that of Śankara-miśra
on the Vaiśeshika-sūtras being most generally used. There are,
moreover, a vast number of separate works on the doctrines of these
schools, especially on logic. Of favourite elementary treatises on
the subject may be mentioned Keśava-miśra's Tarka-bhāshā, the
Tarka-sangraha[177] and the Bhāshā-parichchheda.[178] A large and
important book on logic is Gangeśa's Chintāmaṇi, which formed the
text-book of the celebrated Nuddea school of Bengal, founded by
Raghunātha-śiromaṇi about the beginning of the 16th century.
An interesting little treatise is the Kusumāñjali,[179] in which the author,
Udayana Āchārya (about the 12th century, according to Professor
Cowell), attempts, in 72 couplets, to prove the existence of a Supreme
Being on the principles of the Nyāya system.

As regards the different heretical systems of Hindu philosophy,
there is no occasion, in a sketch of Sanskrit literature, to enter into
Heretical Systems.
the tenets of the two great anti-Brāhmanical sects, the
Jainas and Buddhists. While the original works of the
former are written mostly in a popular (the
Ardhamāgadhī) dialect, the northern Buddhists, it is true, have produced
a considerable body of literature,[180] composed in a kind of hybrid
Sanskrit, but only a few of their sacred books have as yet been
published;[181] and it is, moreover, admitted on all hands that for the
pure and authentic Bauddha doctrines we have rather to look to the
Pāli scriptures of the southern branch. Nor can we do more here
than briefly allude to the theories of a few of the less prominent
heterodox systems, however interesting they may be for a history of
human thought.

The Chārvākas, an ancient sect of undisguised materialism, who
deny the existence of the soul, and consider the human person
(purusha) to be an organic body endowed with sensibility and with
thought, resulting from a modification of the component material
elements, ascribe their origin to Bṛihaspati; but their authoritative
text-book, the Bārhaspatya-sūtra, is only known so far from a few
quotations.

The Pāñcharātras, or Bhāgavatas, are an early Vaishṇava sect,
in which the doctrine of faith, already alluded to, is strongly
developed. Hence their tenets are defended by Rāmānuja, though
they are partly condemned as heretical in the Brahma-sūtras. Their
recognized text-book is the Nārada-Pāñcharātra,[182] whilst the
Bhagavadgītā is also supposed to have had some connexion with this sect.
According to their theory the Supreme Being (Bhagavat, Vāsudeva,
Vishṇu) became four separate persons by successive production.
While the Supreme Being himself is indued with the six qualities of
knowledge, power, strength, absolute sway, vigour and energy, the
three divine persons successively emanating from him and from one
another represent the living soul, mind and consciousness respectively.

The Pāśupatas, one of several Śaiva (Māheśvara) sects, hold the
Supreme Being (Īśvara), whom they identify with Śiva (as paśu-pati,
or “lord of beasts”), to be the creator and ruler of the world, but
not its material cause. With the Sānkhyas they admit the notion of
a plastic material cause, the Pradhāna; while they follow Patañjali
in maintaining the existence of a Supreme God.

III. Grammar (Vyākaraṇa).—We found this subject enumerated
as one of the six “limbs of the Veda,” or auxiliary sciences, the study ​of which was deemed necessary for a correct interpretation of
the sacred Mantras, and the proper performance of Vedic rites.
Grammar.
Linguistic inquiry, phonetic as well as grammatical, was
indeed early resorted to both for the purpose of elucidating
the meaning of the Veda and with the view of settling its textual
form. The particular work which came ultimately to be looked upon
as the “vedānga” representative of grammatical science, and has
Pāṇini.
ever since remained the standard authority on Sanskrit
grammar in India, is Pāṇini's Ashṭādhyāyī,[183] so called from
its “consisting of eight lectures (adhyāya),” of four pādas each.
For a comprehensive grasp of linguistic facts, and a penetrating insight
into the structure of the vernacular language, this work stands
probably unrivalled in the literature of any nation—though few
other languages, it is true, afford such facilities as the Sanskrit
for a scientific analysis. Pāṇini's system of arrangement differs
entirely from that usually adopted in our grammars, viz. according
to the so-called parts of speech. As the work is composed in aphorisms
intended to be learnt by heart, economy of memory-matter
was the author's paramount consideration. His object was chiefly
attained by the grouping together of all cases exhibiting the same
phonetic or formative feature, no matter whether or not they
belonged to the same part of speech. For this purpose he also makes
use of a highly artificial and ingenious system of algebraic symbols,
consisting of technical letters (anubandha), used chiefly with suffixes,
and indicative of the changes which the roots or stems have to
undergo in word-formation.

It is self-evident that so complicated and complete a system of
linguistic analysis and nomenclature could not have sprung up all
at once and in the infancy of grammatical science, but that many
generations of scholars must have helped to bring it to that degree
of perfection which it exhibits in Pāṇini's work. Accordingly we
find Pāṇini himself making reference in various places to ten different
grammarians, besides two schools, which he calls the “eastern
(prāñchas)” and “northern (udañchas)” grammarians. Perhaps
the most important of his predecessors was Śākaṭāyana,[184] also
mentioned by Yāska—the author of the Nirukta, who is likewise
supposed to have preceded Pāṇini—as the only grammarian
(vaiyākaraṇa) who held with the etymologists (nairukta) that all nouns
are derived from verbal roots. Unfortunately there is little hope
of the recovery of his grammar, which would probably have enabled
us to determine somewhat more exactly to what extent Pāṇini was
indebted to the labours of his predecessors. There exists indeed a
grammar in South Indian MSS., entitled Śabdānuśāsana, which is
ascribed to one Śākaṭāyana;[185] but this has been proved[186] to be the
production of a modern Jaina writer, which, however, seems to be
partly based on the original work, and partly on Pāṇini and others.
Pāṇini is also called Dākshīputra, after his mother Dākshī. As
his birthplace the village Śālātura is mentioned, which was situated
some few miles north-west of the Indus, in the country of the Gandliaras,
whence later writers also call him Śālāturīya, the formation
of which name he himself explains in his grammar. Another name
sometimes applied to him is Śālanki. In the Kathā-saritsāgara, a
modern collection of popular tales mentioned above, Pāṇini is said
to have been the pupil of Varsha, a teacher at Pāṭaliputra, under
the reign of Nanda, the father (?) of Chandragupta (315-291 B.C.).
The real date of the great grammarian is, however, still a matter
of uncertainty. While Goldstücker[187] attempted to put his date back
to ante-Buddhist times (about the 7th century B.C.), Professor Weber
held that Pāṇini's grammar cannot have been composed till some
time after the invasion of Alexander the Great. This opinion is
chiefly based on the occurrence in one of the Sūtras of the word
yavanānī, in the sense of “the writing of the Yavanas (Ionians),”
thus implying, it would seem, such an acquaintance with the Greek
alphabet as it would be impossible to assume for any period prior to
Alexander's Indian campaign (326 B.C.). But, as it is by no means
certain[188] that this term really applies to the Greek alphabet, it is
scarcely expedient to make the word the corner-stone of the argument
regarding Pāṇini's age. If Patañjali's “great commentary” was
written, as seems most likely, about the middle of the 2nd century
B.C., it is hardly possible to assign to Pāṇini a later date than about
400 B.C. Though this grammarian registers numerous words and
formations as peculiar to the Vedic hymns, his chief concern is with
the ordinary speech (bhāshā) of his period and its literature; and it is
noteworthy, in this respect, that the rules he lays down on some
important points of syntax (as pointed out by Professors Bhandarkar
and Kielhorn) are in accord with the practice of the Brāhmaṇas
rather than with that of the later classical literature.

Pāṇini's Sūtras continued for ages after to form the centre of
grammatical activity. But, as his own work had superseded those
of his predecessors, so many of the scholars who devoted themselves
to the task of perfecting his system have sunk into oblivion.
The earliest of his successors whose work has come down to us
Kātyāyana.
(though perhaps not in a separate form) is Kātyāyana, the
author of a large collection of concise critical notes, called
Vārttika, intended to supplement and correct the Sūtras, or
give them greater precision. The exact date of this writer is likewise
unknown; but there can be little doubt that he lived at least a
century after Pāṇini. During the interval a new body of literature
seems to have sprung up[189]—accompanied with considerable changes
of language—and the geographical knowledge of India extended
over large tracts towards the south. Whether this is the same
Kātyāyana to whom the Vājasaneyi-prātiśākhya (as well as the
Sarvānukrama) is attributed, is still doubted by some scholars.[190]
Kātyāyana being properly a family or tribal name, meaning “the
descendant of Kātya,” later works usually assign a second name
Vararuchi to the writers (for there are at least two) who bear it.
The Kathāsaritsāgara makes the author of the Vārttikas a fellow student
of Pāṇini, and afterwards the minister of King Nanda;
but, though this date might have fitted Kātyāyana well enough,
it is impossible to place any reliance on the statements derived
from such a source. Kātyāyana was succeeded again, doubtless
Patañjali.
after a considerable interval, by Patañjali, the author of
the (Vyākaraṇa-) Mahā-bhāshya,[191] or Great Commentary.
For the great variety of information it incidentally supplies regarding
the literature and manners of the period, this is, from an historical
and antiquarian point of view, one of the most important works of
the classical Sanskrit literature. Fortunately the author's date has
been fairly settled by synchronisms implied in two passages of his
work. In one of them the use of the imperfect—as the tense referring
to an event, known to people generally, not witnessed by the speaker,
and yet capable of being witnessed by him—is illustrated by the
statement, “The Yavana besieged Sāketa,” which there is reason to
believe can only refer to the Indo-Bactrian king Menander (144-c.
124 B.C.), who, according to Strabo, extended his rule as far as the
Yamunā.[192] In the other passage the use of the present is illustrated
by the sentence, “We are sacrificing for Pushpamitra”-this prince
(178-c. 142 B.C.), the founder of the Śunga dynasty, being known
to have fought against the Greeks.[192] We thus get the years 144 B.C. as the probable time when the work, or part of it, was composed.
Although Patañjali probably gives not a few traditional grammatical
examples mechanically repeated from his predecessors, those here
mentioned are fortunately such as, from the very nature of the case,
must have been made by himself. The Mahābhāshya is not a continuous
commentary on Pāṇini's grammar, but deals only with those
Sūtras (some 1720 out of a total of nearly 4000) on which Kātyāyana
had proposed any Vārttikas, the critical discussion of which, in
connexion with the respective Sūtras, and with the views of other
grammarians expressed thereon, is the sole object of Patañjali's
commentatorial remarks. Though doubts have been raised as to the
textual condition of the work, Professor Kielhorn has clearly shown
that it has probably been handed down in as good a state of preservation
as any other classical Sanskrit work. Patañjali is also called
Gonardīya—which name Professor Bhandarkar takes to mean
“a native of Gonarda,” a place, according to the same scholar,
probably identical with Goṇḍa, a town some 20 m. north-west of
Oudh—and Goṇikāputra, or son of Goṇikā. Whether there is any
connexion between this writer and the reputed author of the
Yogaśāstra is doubtful. The Mahābhāshya has been commented upon
by Kaiyaṭa, in his Bhāshyapradīpa, and the latter again b Nagojibhatta,
a distinguished grammarian of the earlier part of the 18th
century, in his Bhāshya-pradīpoddyota.

Of running commentaries on Pāṇini's Sūtras, the oldest extant
and most important is the Kāśikā Vṛitti,[193] or “comment of Kāśī
Kāśikā Vṛitti.
(Benares),” the joint production of two Jaina writers of
probably the first half of the 7th century, viz. Jayāditya
and Vāmana, each of whom composed one half (four
adhyāyas) of the work. The chief commentaries on this work are
Haradatta Miśra's Padamañjarī, which also embodies the substance
of the Mahābhāshya, and Jinendra-buddhi's Nyāsa.[194]

Educational requirements in course of time led to the appearance
of grammars, chiefly of an elementary character, constructed ​on a more practical system of arrangement—the principal heads
under which the grammatical matter was distributed usually
Modern grammars.
being: rules of euphony (sandhi); inflection of nouns
(nāman), generally including composition and secondary
derivatives; the verb (ākhyāta); and primary (kṛid-anta)
derivatives. In this way a number of grammatical schools[195] sprang
up at different times, each recognizing a special set of Sūtras, round
which gradually gathered a more or less numerous body of
commentatorial and subsidiary treatises. As regards the grammatical
material itself, these later grammars supply comparatively little that
is not already contained in the older works—the difference being
mainly one of method, and partly of terminology, including
modifications of the system of technical letters (anubandha). Of the
Chandra.
grammars of this description hitherto known, the
Chāndravyākaraṇa is probably the oldest—its author Chandra
Āchārya having flourished under King Abhimanyu of Kashmir,
who is supposed to have lived towards the end of the 2nd century,[196]
and in whose reign that grammarian is stated, along with others,
to have revived the study of the Mahābhāshya in Kashmir. Only
portions of this grammar, with a commentary by Ānandadatta,
have, however, as yet been recovered.

The Kātantra,[197] or Kālāpa, is ascribed to Kumāra, the god of war,
whence this school is also sometimes called Kaumāra. The real
Kātantra.
author probably was Śarva-varman, who also wrote the
original commentary (vṙitti), which was afterwards recast
by Durgasiṃha, and again commented upon by the same writer,
and subsequently by Trilochana-dāsa. The date of the Kātantra
is unknown, but it will probably have to be assigned to about the
6th or 7th century. It is still used in many parts of India, especially
in Bengal and Kashmir. Other grammars are—the SārasvatīPrakriyā, by Anubhūti Svarūpāchārya; the Sankshipta-sāra,
composed by Kramadīśvara, and corrected by Jumara-nandin, whence
it is also called Jaumara; the Haima-vyākaraṇa,[198] by the Jaina
Hemachandra, &c.
writer Hemachandra (1088-1172, according to Dr Bhāo
Dājī); the Mugdha-bodha,[199] composed, in the latter part
of the 13th century, by Vopadeva, the court paṇḍit of
King Mahādeva (Rāmarāja) of Devagiri (or Deoghar);
the Siddhānta-kaumudī, the favourite text-book of Indian students,
by Bhaṭṭoji Dikshita (17th century); and a clever abridgment of
it, the Laghu- (Siddhānta-) kaumudī,[200] by Varadarāja.

Several subsidiary grammatical treatises remain to be noticed.
The Paribhāshās are general maxims of interpretation presupposed
Subsidiary grammatical treatises.
by the Sūtras. Those handed down as applicable to
Pāṇini's system have been interpreted most ably by
Nāgojībhaṭṭa, in his Paribāshenduśekhara.[201] In the case of
rules applying to whole groups of words, the complete
lists (gaṇa) of these words are given in the Gaṇapāṭha,
and only referred to in the Sūtras. Vardhamāna's
Gaṇaratnamahodadhi,[202]
a comparatively modern recension of these lists (A.D.
1140), is valuable as offering the only available commentary on the
Gaṇas which contain many words of unknown meaning. The
Dhātupāṭhas are complete lists of the roots (dhātu) of the language,
with their general meanings. The lists handed down under this
title,[203] as apparently arranged by Pāṇini himself, have been
commented upon, amongst others, by Mādhava. The Uṇādi-sūtras are
rules on the formation of irregular derivatives. The oldest work
of this kind, commented upon by Ujjvaladatta,[204] is by some writers
ascribed to Kātyāyana Vararuchi, by others even to Śākaṭāyana.
The oldest known treatise on the philosophy of grammar and syntax
is the Vākya-padiya,[205] composed in verse, by Bhartṛihari (? 7th
century), whence it is also called Harikārikā. Of later works on
this subject, the Vaiyākaraṇa-bhūshaṇa, by Koṇḍabhaṭṭa, and the
Vaiyākaraṇa-siddhānta-mañjūshā, by Nāgojībhaṭṭa, are the most
important.

IV. Lexicography.—Sanskrit dictionaries (kosha), invariably
composed in verse, are either homonymous or synonymous, or partly
Dictionaries.
the one and partly the other. Of those hitherto published,
Śāśvata's Anekārtha-samuchchaya,[206] or “collection of
homonyms,” is probably the oldest. While in the later
homonymic vocabularies the words are usually arranged according
to the alphabetical order of the final (or sometimes the initial) letter,
and then according to the number of syllables, Śāśvata's principle
of arrangement—viz. the number of meanings assignable to a
word—seems to be the more primitive. The work probably next in time
is the famous Amara-kosha[207] (“immortal treasury”) by Amarasimha,
one of “the nine gems,” who probably lived early in the 6th
century. This dictionary consists of a synonymous and a short
homonymous part; whilst in the former the words are distributed
in sections according to subjects, as heaven and the gods, time and
seasons, &c., in the latter they are arranged according to their final
letter, without regard to the number of syllables. This Kosha has
found many commentators, the oldest of those known being
Kshīrasvāmin.[208] Among the works quoted by commentators as Amara's
sources are the Trikāṇḍa and Utpalinī-koshas, and the glossaries
of Rabhasa, Vyāḍi, Kātyāyana, and Vararuchi. A Kosha ascribed
to Vararuchi—whom tradition makes likewise one of the nine
literary “gems”—consisting of ninety short sections, has been printed
at Benares (1865) in a collection of twelve Koshas. The
Abhidhāna-ratnamālā,[209] by Halāyudha; the Viśvaprakāśa, by Maheśvara (1111);
and the Abhidhāna-chintāmaṇi[210] (or Haima-kosha), by the Jaina
Hemachandra, seem all three to belong to the 12th century. Somewhat
earlier than these probably is Ajaya Pāla, the author of the
(homonymous) Nānārtha-sangraha, being quoted by Vardhamāna
(A.D. 1140). Of more uncertain date is Purushottama Deva, who
Wrote the Trikāṇḍa-śesha, a supplement to the Amarkosha, besides
the Hārāvalī, a collection of uncommon words, and two other short
glossaries. Of numerous other works of this class the most important
is the Medinī, a dictionary of homonyms, arranged in the first place
according to the finals and the syllabic length, and then alphabetically.
Two important dictionaries, compiled by native scholars of
the last century, are the Śabdakalpadruma by Rādhākānta Deva,
and the Vāchaspatya, by Tārānātha Tarka-vāchaspati. A full
account of Sanskrit dictionaries is contained in the preface to the
first edition of H. H. Wilson's Dictionary, reprinted in his Essays onSanskrit Literature, vol. iii.

V. Prosody (Chhandas).—The oldest treatises on prosody have
already been referred to in the account of the technical branches
Prosody.
of the later Vedic literature. Among more modern
treatises the most important are the Mṛita-sanjīvanī, a
commentary on Pingala's Sūtra, by Halāyudha (perhaps identical
with the author of the glossary above referred to); the
Vṛitta-ratnākara, or “jewel-mine of metres,” in six chapters, composed
before the 13th century by Kedāra Bhaṭṭa, with several commentaries;
and the Chhando-mañjarī, likewise in six chapters, by
Gangādāsa. The Śrutabodha, ascribed, probably wrongly, to the
great Kālidāsa, is a comparatively insignificant treatise which deals
only with the more common metres, in such a way that each stanza
forms a specimen of the metre it describes. The Vṛitta-darpaṇa
treats chiefly of Prākṛit metres. Sanskrit prosody, which is probably
not surpassed by any other either in variety of metre or in harmoniousness
of rhythm, recognizes two classes of metres, viz. such
as consist of a certain number of syllables of fixed quantity, and such
as are regulated by groups of breves or metrical instants, this latter
class being again of two kinds, according as it is or is not bound
by a fixed order of feet. A pleasant account of Sanskrit poetics is
given in Colebrooke's Essays, vol. ii.; a more complete and systematic
one by Professor Weber, Ind. Stud. vol. viii.

VI. Music (Sangīta).—The musical art has been practised in
India from early times. The theoretic treatises on profane music
Music.
now extant are, however, quite modern productions.
The two most highly esteemed works are the
Sangīta-ratnākara (“jewel-mine of music”), by Śārngadeva, and the Sangīta-darpaṇa (“mirror of music”), by Dāmodara. Each of these works
consists of seven chapters, treating respectively of—(1) sound and
musical notes (svara); (2) melodies (rāga); (3) music in connexion
with the human voice (prakīrṇaka); (4) musical compositions
(prabandha); (5) time and measure (tāla); (6) musical instruments
and instrumental music (vādya); (7) dancing and acting (nṛitta or
nṛitya). The Indian octave consists like our own of seven chief
notes (svara); but, while with us it is subdivided into twelve semitones,
the Hindu theory distinguishes twenty-two intervals (śruti,
audible sound). There is, however, some doubt as to whether these
śrutis are quite equal to one another—in which case the intervals
between the chief notes would be unequal, since they consist of either
two or three or four śrutis,—or whether, if the intervals between the
chief notes be equal, the śrutis themselves vary in duration between
quarter-, third-, and semi-tones. There are three scales (grāma),
differing from each other in the nature of the chief intervals (either
as regards actual duration, or the number of śrutis or sub-tones).
Indian music consists almost entirely in melody, instrumental
accompaniment being performed in unison, and any attempt at
harmony being confined to the continuation of the key-note. A ​number of papers, by various writers, have been reprinted with
additional remarks on the subject, in Sourindro Mohun Tagore's
Hindu Music (Calcutta, 1875). Compare also Bh. A. Pingle, IndianMusic, 2nd ed. (Bombay 1898).

VII. Rhetoric (Alankāra-śāstra).—Treatises on the theory of
literary composition are very numerous. Indeed, a subject of this
Rhetoric.
description—involving such nice distinctions as regards
the various kinds of poetic composition, the particular
subjects and characters adapted for them, and the different sentiments
or mental conditions capable of being both depictured and
called forth by them—could not but be congenial to the Indian mind.
H. H. Wilson, in his Theatre of the Hindus, has given a detailed account
of these theoretic distinctions with special reference to the drama,
which, as the most perfect and varied kind of poetic production,
usually takes an important place in the theory of literary
composition. The Bharata-śāstra has already been alluded to as probably
the oldest extant work in this department of literature.
Another comparatively ancient treatise is the Kāvyādarśa,[211] or
“mirror of poetry,” in three chapters, by Daṇḍin, the author of the
novel Daśakumāracharita, who probably flourished towards the end
of the 6th century. The work consists of three chapters, treating—(1)
of two different local styles (rīti) of poetry, the Gauḍī or eastern
and the Vaidarbhī or southern (to which later critics add four others,
the Pāñchālī, Māgadhī, Lāṭī, and Āvantikā); (2) of the graces and
ornaments of style, as tropes, figures, similes; (3) of alliteration,
literary puzzles and twelve kinds of faults to be avoided in composing
poems. Another treatise on rhetoric, in Sūtras, with a
commentary entitled Kāvyālankāra-vṛitti,[212] is ascribed to Vāmana
of probably the 8th century. The Kāvyālankāra, by the Kashmirian
Rudraṭa, was probably composed in the 9th century, a gloss on it
(by Nami), which professes to be based on older commentaries,
having been written in 1068. Dhananjaya, the author of the
Daśarūpa,[213]
or “ten forms (of plays),” the favourite compendium of
dramaturgy, appears to have flourished in the 10th century. In
the concluding stanza he is stated to have composed his work at
the court of King Muñja, who is probably identical with the well known
Mālava prince, the uncle and predecessor of King Bhoja of
Dhārā. The Daśarūpa was early commented upon by Dhanika,
possibly the author's own brother, their father's name being the
same (Vishṇu). Dhanika quotes Rājaśekhara, who is supposed to
have flourished about A.D. 1000,[214] but may after all have to be put
somewhat earlier. The Sarasvatī-kanṭhābharaṇa, “the neck-ornament
of Sarasvatī (the goddess of eloquence),” a treatise, in five
chapters, on poetics generally, remarkable for its wealth of quotations,
is ascribed to King Bhoja himself (11th century), probably as a
compliment by some writer patronized by him. The Kāvya-prakāśa,[215]
“the lustre of poetry,” another esteemed work of the same class, in
ten sections, was probably composed in the 12th century—the
author, Mammaṭa, a Kashmirian, having been the maternal uncle
of Śrī-Harsha, the author of the Naishadhīya. The Sāhitya-darpaṇa,[216]
or “mirror of composition,” the standard work on literary criticism,
was composed in the 15th century, on the banks of the Brahmaputra,
by Viśvanātha Kavirāja. The work consists of ten chapters, treating
of the following subjects:—(1) the nature of poetry; (2) the sentence;
(3) poetic flavour (rasa); (4) the divisions of poetry; (5) the functions
of literary suggestion; (6) visible and audible poetry (chiefly
on dramatic art); (7) faults of style; (8) merits of style; (9) distinction
of styles; (10) ornaments of style.

VIII. Medicine (Āyur-veda, Vaidya-śāstra).—Though the early
cultivation of the healing art is amply attested by frequent allusions
Medicine.
in the Vedic writings, it was doubtless not till a much later
period that the medical practice advanced beyond a
certain degree of empirical skill and pharmaceutic routine.
From the simultaneous mention of the three humours (wind, bile,
phlegm) in a vārttika to Pāṇini (v. 1, 38), some kind of humoral
pathology would, however, seem to have been prevalent among
Indian physicians several centuries before our era. The oldest
existing work is supposed to be the Charaka-saṃhitā,[217] a bulky cyclopedia
in ślokas, mixed with prose sections, which consists of eight
chapters, and was probably composed for the most part in the early
centuries of our era. Whether the Chinese tradition which makes
Charaka the court physician of King Kanishka (c.A.D. 100) rests
on fact is very doubtful. Of equal authority, but doubtless somewhat
more modern, is the Suśruta (-saṃhitā),[218] which Suśruta is said
to have received from Dhanvantari, the Indian Aesculapius, whose
name, however, appears also among the “nine gems.” It consists
of six chapters, and is likewise composed in mixed verse and prose—the
greater simplicity of arrangement, as well as some slight attention
paid in it to surgery, betokening an advance upon Charaka. Both
works are, however, characterized by great prolixity, and contain
much matter which has little connexion with medicine. The late
Professor E. Haas, in two very suggestive papers,[219] tried to show
that the work of Suśruta (identified by him with Socrates, so often
confounded in the middle ages with Hippocrates) was probably not
composed till after the Mohammedan conquest, and that, so far
from the Arabs (as they themselves declare) having derived some
of their knowledge of medical science from Indian authorities, the
Indian Vaidyaśāstra was nothing but a poor copy of Greek medicine,
as transmitted by the Arabs. But even though Greek influence may
be traced in this as in other branches of Indian science, there can
be no doubt,[220] at any rate, that both Charaka and Suśruta were
known to the Arab Rāzī (c.A.D. 932), and to the author of the
Fihrist (completed A.D. 987), and that their works must therefore
have existed, in some form or other, at least as early as the 9th
century. Among the numerous later medical works published and
greatly esteemed in India, the most important general compendiums
are Vāgbhaṭa's Ashṭānga-hṛidaya, “the heart of the eight-limbed
(body of medical science),” supposed to have been written in the
9th century, or still earlier; and Bhāva Miśra's Bhāva-prakāśa,
probably of the early part of the 16th century;, while of special
treatises may be mentioned Mādhava's system of pathology, the
Rugviniśchaya, or Mādhava-Nidāna, of the 8th or 9th century;
and Śārngadhara's compendium of therapeutics, the Śārngadhara-saṃhitā,
composed before 1300, having been commented upon by
Vopadeva. Materia medica, with which India is so lavishly endowed
by nature, is a favourite subject with Hindu medical writers,
the oldest treatise being apparently the Dhanvantari-nighaṇṭu, of
uncertain, but not very high, age; besides which may be mentioned
Madanapāla's Madanavinoda, written A.D. 1374; the more modern
Rāja-nighaṇtu, by the Kashmirian Narahari; besides other, still
more recent esteemed works of this class, to which may be added
the valuable medical dictionary Vaidyakaśabdasindhu by
Umeśachandra Gupta. A useful general view of this branch of Indian
science is contained in T. A. Wise's Commentary on Hindu Medicine
(1845), and in his History of Medicine, vol. i. (1867); but the subject
has since then been treated in a much fuller and more critical way
in Professor J. Jolly's “Medicin” in Bühler's Grundriss derindoarischen Philologie.

IX. Astronomy and Mathematics.—Hindu astronomy may
be broadly divided into a pre-scientific and a scientific period.
While the latter clearly presupposes a knowledge of the
researches of Hipparchus and other Greek astronomers,
Astronomy and Mathematics.
it is still doubtful whether the earlier astronomical and
astrological theories of Indian writers were entirely of
home growth or partly derived from foreign sources.
From very ancient (probably Indo-European) times
chronological calculations were based on the synodical revolutions
of the moon—the difference between twelve such revolutions (making
together 354 days) and the solar year being adjusted by the insertion,
at the time of the winter solstice, of twelve additional days. Besides
this primitive mode the Ṛigveda also alludes to the method prevalent
in post-Vedic times, according to which the year is divided into
twelve (sāvana or solar) months of thirty days, with a thirteenth
month intercalated every fifth year. This quinquennial cycle
(yuga), is explained in the Jyotisha, regarded as the oldest
astronomical treatise. An institution which occupies an important
part in those early speculations is the theory of the so-called lunar
zodiac, or system of lunar mansions, by which the planetary path,
in accordance with the duration of the moon's rotation, is divided
into twenty-seven or twenty-eight different stations, named after
certain constellations (nakshatra) which are found alongside of the
ecliptic, and with which the moon (masc.) was supposed to dwell
successively during his circuit. The same institution is found in
China and Arabia; but it is still doubtful[221] whether the Hindus, as
some scholars hold, or the Chaldaeans, as Professor Weber thinks,
are to be credited with the invention of this theory. Professor G.
Thibaut,[222] who has again thoroughly investigated the problem, comes
to the conclusion that it is improbable that the nakshatra-theory
arose independently in India, but that it is still doubtful whence the
Hindus derived it. The principal works of this period are hitherto
known from quotations only, viz. the Gārgī Saṃhitā, which Professor
Kern would fix at c. 50 B.C., the Nāradī Saṃhitā and others.
The new era, which the same scholar dates from c.A.D. 250, is
marked by the appearance of the five original Siddhāntas (partly
extant in revised redactions and in quotations), the very names of
two of which suggest Western influence, viz. the Paitāmaha-, Sūrya-,[223]Vasishtha-, Romaka- (i.e. Roman) and Pauliśa-siddhāntas. Based ​on these are the works of the most distinguished Indian astronomers,
viz. Āryabhaṭa,[224] probably born in 476; Varāha-mihira,[225] probably
505-587; Brahma-gupta, who completed his Brahma-siddhānta in
628; Bhaṭṭa Utpala (10th century), distinguished especially as
commentator of Varāha-mihira; and Bhāskara Āchārya, who, born in 1114,
finished his great course of astronomy, the Siddhānta-śiromaṇi, in
1150. In the works of several of these writers, from Āryabhaṭa
onwards, special attention is paid to mathematical (especially
arithmetical and algebraic) computations; and the respective chapters
of Bhāskara’s compendium, viz. the Līlāvatī and Vīja-gaṇita,[226] still
form favourite text-books of these subjects. The question whether
Āryabhaṭa was acquainted with the researches of the Greek algebraist
Diophantus (c.A.D. 360) remains still unsettled, but, even if this
was the case, algebraic science seems to have been carried by him
beyond the point attained by the Greeks.

On Sanskrit literature generally may be consulted Max Müller,
History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature; A. Weber, History of IndianLiterature; A. A. Macdonell, History of Sanskrit Literature.
(J. E.)

↑It also shows occasionally other tense-forms than the perfect of
the same periphrastic formation with kar.

↑We might compare the different treatment in Sanskrit of an and
in bases (mūrdháni-mūrdhnā̇; vādíni-vādínā); for, though the latter
are doubtless of later origin, their inflection might have been
expected to be influenced by that of the former. Also a comparison of
such forms as (devá) devā̇nām (agní) agnīnā̇m, and (dhenú) dhenúnā̇m,
tells in favour of the i- and u-vowels, as regards power of resistance,
inasmuch as it does not require the accent in order to remain intact.

↑J. Muir's Original Sanskrit Texts (5 vols., 2nd ed.) forms the most
complete general survey of the results of Vedic research.

↑The combination ch, used (in conformity with the usual English
practice) in this sketch of the literature, corresponds to the simple
c—as ṛi does to ṛ—in the scheme of the alphabet.

↑Cf. P. Deussen, The Philosophy of the Upanishads (Edinburgh,
1906), where these treatises are classified; Jacob, A Concordanceto the Principal Upanishads and Bhagavadgītā (Bombay S.S., 1891).

↑The Ṛigveda has been edited, together with the commentary of
Sāyaṇa (of the 14th century), by Max Müller (6 vols., London, 1849-1874;
2nd ed., 4 vols., 1890-1892). The same scholar has published an
edition of the hymns, both in the connected (saṃhitā) and the disjoined
(pada) texts, 1873-1877. An edition in Roman transliteration was
published by Th. Aufrecht (Berlin, 1861-1863, 2nd ed. 1877). Part of
an English translation (chiefly based on Sāyaṇa's interpretation) was
brought out by the late Professor H. H. Wilson (vols. i.-iii., 1850-1857)
and completed by Professor E. B. Cowell (vols. iv.-vi., 1866-1888).
We have also the first volume of a translation, with a running
commentary, by M. Müller, containing 12 hymns to the Maruts or
storm-gods (1869). These were reprinted, together with the
remaining hymns to the Maruts, and those addressed to Rudra, Vāyu
and Vāta, Vedic Hymns I. in S.B.E., vol. xxxii. (1891); where
(vol. xlvi.) H. Oldenberg has also translated the hymns to Agni,
in maṇḍalas 1-5. A metrical English translation was published
by R. H. T. Griffith (2 vols., Benares, 1896-1897). Complete
German translations have been published, in verse, by H. Grassmann
(1876-1877) and, in prose, with comm., A. Ludwig
(1876-1888). Cf. also Kaegi, The Rigveda (Eng. trans. by Arrowsmith,
Boston, 1886).

↑Edited, with an English translation, by M. Haug (2 vols.,
Bombay, 1863). An edition in Roman transliteration, with extracts
from the commentary, has been published by Th. Aufrecht (Bonn,
1879).

↑Edited, with Sāyaṇa's commentary, by Rājendralāla Mitra, in
the Bibliotheca Indica (1875-1876). The first three books have been
translated by F. Max Müller in S.B.E. vol. i. A new edition of the
work was published, with translation, by A. B. Keith (Oxford, 1909).

↑Edited and translated by Dr Röer, in the Bibl. Ind. The last
chapter of the second book, not being commented upon by Sāyaṇa,
is probably a later addition.

↑Translated by A. B. Keith (1908), who has also published (as
an appendix to his ed. of the Aitareyāraṇyaka) the text of adhy.
7-15; whilst W. F. Friedländer edited adhy. 1 and 2 (1900). Cf.
Keith, J.R.As.S. (1908), p. 363 sqq., where the date of the first
and more original portion (adhy. 1-8) is tentatively fixed at 600-550
B.C.

↑Text, commentary and translation published by E. B. Cowell,
in the Bibl. Ind. Also a translation by F. Max Müller in S.B.E.
vol. i.

↑Edited, with a German translation, by H. Oldenberg (Ind.Stud. vol. xv.), who also gives an account of the Sāmbavya
Gṛihya. An English translation in S.B.E. vol. xxix. by the same
scholar, who would assign the two sūtra works to Sarvajna
Śānkhāyana, whilst the Brāhmaṇa (and Āraṇyaka) seem to him to have
been imparted by Kahola Kaushītaki to Guṇakhya Śānkhāyana.

↑Edited and translated by J. Stevenson (1843); a critical
edition, with German translation and glossary, was published by
Th. Benfey (1848); also an edition, with the Gānas and Sāyaṇa's
commentary, by Satyavrata Sāmāśramī, in the Bibl. Ind. in 5 vols.;
and Eng. trans. by R. H. T. Griffith (Benares, 1893).

↑Edited, with Sāyaṇa's commentary by Ānandachandra
Vedāntavāgīśa, in the Bibl. Ind. (1869-1874).

↑See P. v. Bradke, Z.D.M.G. vol. xxxvi. A MS. of a portion of
the Śrauta-sūtra, with the commentary of the famous Mīmāmsist
Kumārila, has been photo-lithographed by the India Office, under
Goldstücker's supervision.

↑G. Bühler has published the text with extracts from Haradatta's
commentary, Bombay Sansk. Ser.; also a trans. in S.B.E.

↑The Śulva-sūtra has been published, with the commentary of
Kapardisvāmin, and a translation by G. Thibaut, in the BenaresPandit (1875). The Dharma-sūtra has been edited by E. Hultzsch
(Leipzig, 1884), and translated by G. Bühler, S.B.E. xiv.

↑Edited, with Uvaṭa's commentary, and a German translation, by
A. Weber, Ind. Stud. iv.; another ed. in Benares Sansk. Ser. (1888).

↑The work has been published by W. D. Whitney, with a
translation and a commentary by an unknown author, called Tribhāshyaratna,
i.e. “jewel of the three commentaries,” it being founded on
three older commentaries by Vararuchi (? Kātyāyana), Māhisheya
and Ātreya.

↑The first account of a copy of it was given by Professor R. v.
Roth, in his academic dissertation, “Der Atharvaveda in Kaschmir”
(1875). The reproduction on 544 plates, edited by M. Bloomfield
and R. Garbe (Baltimore, 1901).

↑For a full list of existing translations of and essays on the
Upanishads, see Introd. to Max Müller's “Upanishads,” S.B.E. i.
Cf also P. Deussen, Sechzig Upanishads (1897).

↑Three complete Indian editions, the handiest in 4 vols., including
the Harivaṃśa (Calcutta, 1834-1839); a Bombay edition, with
Nīlakaṇṭha's commentary (1863); and a third, in Telugu characters,
containing the Southern recension (Madras, 1855-1860). Another
Southern edition, in Nāgarī, is now appearing at Bombay, edited
by Krishnacharya and Vyasacharya of Kumbakonam. An English
translation has been brought out at Calcutta by Pratap Chundra
Roy (1883-1894); and another by M. N. Dutt (5 vols., Calcutta,
1896); whilst numerous episodes have been printed and translated
by European scholars. For critical analysis of this epic consult
A. Holtzmann, Das Mahābhārata (4 vols., Kiel, 1892-1895); W.
Hopkins, The Great Epic of India (New York, 1902).

↑There are several Indian editions of these two works. The
Bhāgavata has been partly printed, in an édition de luxe, with a
French translation at Paris, in 3 vols., by E. Burnouf, and a fourth
by M. Hauvette-Besnault. Of the Vishṇu, there is a translation
by H. H. Wilson, 2nd ed., enriched with valuable notes by F. Hall.
This and most other Purāṇas have been printed in India, especially
in the Bibl. Ind. and the “Anand. series.”

↑The Calcutta edition (1835) and that of A. Troyer, with a French
trans., based on insufficient material, have been superseded by
M. A. Stein's ed. (Bombay, 1892), trans. by Y. C. Datta (Calcutta,
1898).

↑Edited, with a Latin translation, by C. Lassen; English translation
by E. Arnold.

↑Edited by F. Stenzler; with commentary, by K. P. Parab
(Bombay), and several times at Calcutta; translated by H. H.
Wilson; also into English prose and verse by A. W. Ryder (HarvardOr. Ser., 1905); German by O; v. Böhtlingk and L. Fritze; French
by P. Regnaud.

↑Both these plays are known in different recensions in different
parts of India. The Bengali recension of the Śakuntalā was translated
by Sir W. Jones, and into French, with the text, by Chézy, and
again edited by R. Pischel, who has also advocated its greater
antiquity. Editions and translations of the western (Devanāgarī)
recension have been published by O. Böhtlingk and Mon. Williams.
The Vikramorvaśī has been edited critically by S. P. Pandit, and the
southern text by R. Pischel. It has been translated by H. H. Wilson
and E. B. Cowell.

↑Edited critically by S. P. Pandit; translated by C. H. Tawney
(1875), and into German by A. Weber (1856), and L. Fritze (1881).

↑Edited by Tārānātha Tarkavāchaspati, and by C. Capeller in
Böhtlingk's Sanskrit-Chrestomathie; with commentary (Bombay,
1895); translated by H. H. Wilson.

↑Edited by Mādhava Chandra Ghosha and translated by P. Boyd,
with a preface by E. B. Cowell.

↑This is the commentator's explanation of the name, whilst
M. Lévi would render it by “the divine throat.”

↑Edited by R. G. Bhandarkar (1876); translated by H. H.
Wilson. Whether, as M. S. Lévi suggests, the fact of the play consisting
of ten acts points to its having been composed in imitation
of the Mṛichchhakaṭikā must remain uncertain.

↑The standard edition is by G. C. Haughton, with Sir W. Jones's
translation (1825); the latest translations by A. Burnell and G.
Bühler. There is also a critical essay on the work by F. Johäntgen.
On the relation between the Dharmasūtras and Smṛitis see especially
West and Bühler, Digest of Hindu Law (3rd ed.), i. p. 37 seq.

↑The etymological connexion of brahman (from root varh, vardh)
with Latin verbum, English word (corresponding to a Sanskrit vardha),
assumed by some scholars, though doubtful, is not impossible. The
development of its meaning would be somewhat like that of λόγος.

↑The derivation of ātman (Ger. Atem) from root an, to breathe
(or perhaps av, to blow) seems still the most likely. A recent attempt
to connect it with αὐτός can scarcely commend itself.

↑From such allusions, or statements, in the Upanishads, some
scholars have actually gone the length of claiming the origin of this
cardinal doctrine of Vedānta philosophy for the Kshatriyas. It
seems to us, however, very much more likely that these anecdotes
were introduced by the Brahmanical sages of set purpose to win over
their worldly patrons from their materialistic tendencies to their
own idealistic views. Kapila, the author of the materialistic
Sānkhya, is supposed to have been a Kshatriya, and so, we know,
was the Śākya Muni.

↑Cf. Muṇḍaka-upanishad, i. 4, 5, where these two divisions are
called “the lower (apara) and the higher (para) knowledge.”

↑These works have all been printed with commentaries in India;
and they have been partly translated by Ballantyne and by
K. M. Banerjea. The best general view o the systems is to be
obtained from H. C. Colebrooke's account, Misc. Essays, i. (2nd ed.),
with Professor Cowell's notes. Compare also the brief abstract
given in Goldstücker's Literary Remains, vol. i. A very useful
classified index of philosophical works was published by F. Hall
(1859).

↑Part of this work was first printed by Ballantyne; followed by a
lithographed edition, by two Benares pandits (1871); and a photolithographic
edition of the text and commentaries, published by the
India Office, under Goldstücker's supervision (1874); finally, a
critical edition by F. Kielhorn. For a review, of the literary and
antiquarian data supplied by the work, see A. Weber, Ind. Stud.
xiii. 293 seq. The author's date has been frequently discussed,
most thoroughly and successfully, by R. G. Bhandarkar in several
papers. See also A. Weber, Hist. of I.L. p. 223.

↑A grammarian of this name is mentioned as the tutor of King
Jayāpīḍa of Kashmir (A.D. 755-786); but Kshīra, the commentator
on Amara, is placed by Professor Aufrecht between the 11th and
12th centuries, because he quotes the Śabdānuśāsana ascribed to
Bhojarāja.

↑The Bṛihat-saṃhitā and Yogayātrā, edited and translated by
H. Kern; the Laghu-jātaka, edited by A. Weber and H. Jacobi.

↑A translation of both treatises, as well as of the respective
chapters of Brahma-gupta’s work, was published (1817) by H. T.
Colebrooke, with an important “Dissertation on the Algebra of the
Hindus,” reprinted in the Misc. Essays, ii. pp. 375 seq.